The Magnus Effect.

 Hello all, and welcome back to yet another lockdown post.

Today we will be looking at a bit of a strange phenomenon called...

The Magnus Effect.

Now, what exactly is the Magnus Effect?

The Magnus Effect, essentially, is a phenomenon in which when, let's say, someone throws a ball from a high altitude (straight down, of course). The air at the front of the ball moves exactly with the spin of the ball, which would be the blue arrow, and the air gets deflected back by the ball's spin. On the other hand, air on the other side of the ball is moving opposite to the ball's spin, so instead of getting deflected, it instead gets seperated from the spin. The net result is when the air that moves with the spin applies any amount of force, the other flow of air applies an equal amount of force in the opposite direction, effectively curving (or arcing) the ball. This creates the Magnus Effect. 

The Magnus Effect works well when applied to sports, like soccer and tennis, in which arcing the ball properly can have great effect to advantage.

On the other hand, this seems like a relatively useless thing for engineering, but it actually does have its uses. Specifically, for boats:

You may be thinking to yourself, "What in all living hell is that?!"

This, my friends, is a rotor boat. Now, these elongated cylinders aren't chimneys, they are effectively sails. These are called rotors (or rotor sails), and they use the Magnus Effect and its fundamentals to propel the boat forward. This is great for a few reasons:

• Diesel use reduction.
• Less pollution.
• Ease of control from sheltered navigation stations.

They are trying to implement this into flight as well, starting from the early 1900s, when someone developed a plane which created more lift than normal, but also more drag, rendering it ineffective. But, someone has started to develop it more efficently, so we might see more of these rotors.

Anyway, that's me.

Stay safe boys,

-M.V

Aerogello.

 Hello all, welcome back to yet another lockdown post.

Today, we'll be looking at a somewhat new material used by a lot of engineers today (specifically NASA engineers), a little thing called Aerogel.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, what exactly is Aerogel?

Aerogel is a synthetic material that is made by creating a gel, which is made up of a liquid and solid structure, and replacing the liquid in it with a gas without damaging the solid structure of the gel. This results in the creation of a low densile, but solid material with an extremely low thermal conductivity as well.

Now, let's get to the inventive side of Aerogel.

The whole creation of Aerogel was thought up by a guy named Professor Samuel Kistler back in 1931. The idea was brought up when Samuel had a bet with his colleague Charles Learned. It was revolved around jellies, which are made up of about 99% liquid and 1% of a porous 3D skeleton. So, that year, the bet was given; "Could you remove the liquid from the jelly, without damaging the solid structure?".

Now, this wasn't as simple as just evaporating the liquid from the jelly, since that would shrink the solid structure itself, causing the structure to pull in on itself, effectively crumpling it from the inside. Nevertheless, Samuel figured it out. Firstly, he discovered that you could replace a liquid in the jelly with another by thoroughly washing it through, like water to alcohol. Then, by putting the jelly through a machine called an autoclave (which pressurizes the jelly), by pressurizing the jelly liquid to the highest critical point, it transforms into a semi liquid, semi gas solution, effectively replacing the liquid with gas and leaving the solid structure intact.

There are a bunch of materials used that follow the same process, such as:

• Silica
• Alumina
• Chromia
• Tin oxide

Now, in the aerogel, about 99% of it is air, while the rest is that solid structure. This is what makes it so low in density, it's because of that switch from the liquid to gas.

The uses of aerogel are varied, but here's a few:

• Trapping comet particles in space.
• Thermal insulation against the cold on components like electronics.
• Insulation on various life support systems, space shuttles, etc.

Anyway, that's me.

Stay safe boys.

- M.V

Atomic's Inc.

Hello all, back with more convoluted but simple science.

Today is all about everyone's theoretical relative, the atom.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, what exactly is an atom?

An atom is the tiniest little unit of matter that makes up an element. They are called "The building blocks of the universe.", since all matter contains atoms, meaning that everything has atoms, including humans, animals, the soil of which makes up the earth and the air we breathe. You literally cannot avoid atoms at all, they are there interacting with you without your knowledge (which sounds a bit strange, but you get the point).

In the image above, it shows the buildings blocks which make up an atom. Now, don't get confused. Atoms might be the smallest unit that make up matter, but they're not the tiniest things in science. That title goes to the particles that make up an atom. 

In an atom, there are three main particles that make an atom:

1. Protons
2. Neutrons
3. Electrons

Protons contain a positive electrical charge, Neutrons contain none and Electrons contain a negative electrical charge. Both the protons and neutrons stay in the center of the atom, sitting comfortably and becoming the nucleus, while the electrons move around freely. Now, in a normal diagram of an atom, they are shown to revolve around the nucleus. However, this is just a way to easily represent the electrons and how they work, while in truth, the electrons shoot around freely and move in an uncontrolled fashion. 

Back to charges. An atom usually has no electrical charge since the positive charge of a proton is cancelled out by the negative charge of the electron, and since the neutron has no charge at all, it remains neutral.

Back to electrons. You may not realize how fast electrons travel, but they travel stupid fast, approximately 2,200km/s.

In regards to how much of an atom is empty space, technically speaking, is none. Theoretically speaking, there is no such thing as pure empty space, since electrons fill in that role of filling in that space. But if we're going off of approximate theories, then an atom is filled with about 99.996% empty space (rounding off to three decimal places).

Anyway, that's me.

Stay safe boys.

-M.V