THE WORMHOLE:


  Exciting the Imagination

The Wormhole  
The Wormhole
A portal to the lighter side of science
Follow SPS on:
Twitter Facebook YouTube Flickr The Nucleus
Email and Share
Featured Videos:

  • Known Universe
  • Science Tricks
  • Punk 'N Chuck
  • Symphony of Science
  • Intro Physics

The Known Universe by AMNH
Digital Universe, American Museum of Natural History

The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. The American Museum of Natural History.

Data: Digital Universe, American Museum of Natural History


Top 10 quirky science party tricks
Prof Richard Wiseman's daily blog: richardwiseman.wordpress.com/
Want to make a splash at your next party? Why not try an ace science stunt or two. I have assembled my top ten in the video here. They can all be performed with everyday objects, and only take a few seconds to learn.

Here we go….

Punk ‘N Chuck Competition put on by ISU SPS

LocalNews8.com
Pumpkins were flying sky high at the Punk ‘N Chuck Competition put on by the Idaho State University SPS chapter. Teams from high schools in Blackfoot, Malad and Idaho Falls as well as teams from BYU-Idaho completed with catapults they built and designed. Students were competing for trophies along with bragging rights. In addition to all the catapults built by local high schools and BYU-Idaho, the ISU SPS built a catapult capable of hurling pumpkins 200 yards or more.

"We Are All Connected"
Symphony of Science


MP3 available at: www.symphonyofscience.com
"We Are All Connected" was made from sampling Carl Sagan's Cosmos, The History Channel's Universe series, Richard Feynman's 1983 interviews, Neil deGrasse Tyson's cosmic sermon, and Bill Nye's Eyes of Nye Series, plus added visuals from The Elegant Universe (NOVA), Stephen Hawking's Universe, Cosmos, the Powers of 10, and more. It is a tribute to great minds of science, intended to spread scientific knowledge and philosophy through the medium of music.

The First Casualty of Physics
UMass, Lowell

The First Casualty of Physics is innocence - see the awesome new 'trailer' for the Introductory Physics class at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

Watch on YouTube

• Sympathy Tips for Physicists -XKCD
• What would the 'Big Crunch' look like from Earth? -Curious About Astronomy
• The Secret Behind the Visual Effects Oscar -AIP Inside Science
• SETI@Home Adds New Search Method -Slashdot
• The Top Ten Mad Scientists -LiveScience.com

Featured Stories:

  • Bombing Moon?
  • Death Star Physics
  • 13 Things
  • Ghosthunters
  • NASCAR Science

No, NASA is not bombing the Moon
Universe Today
There seems to be a little lunacy making the rounds that NASA is going to "bomb" the Moon on Friday morning, Oct. 9, or "hurt the Moon," or "split the Moon in half," or change its orbit. This is all just nonsense and scare-mongering, and those worried about our Moon can rest assured our lunar companion will remain in the sky relatively unchanged after this experiment to search for water ice on the Moon's south pole. Let's take a look at the physics involved and what might happen to the Moon

Full Story
Is Science Fiction Science FACT?: Death Star Physics
Elder-Geek.com
Image credit: Elder-Geek.comI’m sure that most of you out there have been sitting at home and thinking to yourself, "Golly gee! I wonder how much energy the Death Star needed in order to destroy Alderaan!" No? Hm, it’s just me then. ... Recently I was at the first meeting of the Physics Book Club, having a lengthy discussion about the notion of spinning, time, space, and other such things that physics nerds ponder in their everyday lives. More...

13 More Things That Don't Make Sense
New Scientist
(Image: Loungepark / The Image Bank / Getty)Strive as we might to make sense of the world, there are mysteries that still confound us. In this classic article from 2005, New Scientist takes a tour of thirteen perplexing exceptions that could rewrite all the rules. Cracking any one of them could yield profound truths.

See the list...

Why Ghost Hunters Is the Best Science Show on TV
Discover.com
Of the questions that have troubled great thinkers these last few thousand years, the question of which TV science show is the best has proved among the hardest to resolve. This is partly because the science shows on television keep changing, but it is also a fact that work in the field has, until lately, been spotty and lackadaisical, undertaken more often by desperate science writers for an afternoon than by a dedicated specialist for an entire year. Without further ado I can now reveal the best science show on television: Ghost Hunters, currently in its fifth preposterous season on cable television’s Syfy (né Sci Fi) Channel.No matter how silly and misguided, Ghost Hunters captures an element of science that Numb3rs, House, and even Mythbusters miss.
NSF teams with NASCAR for "The Science of Speed"
Science360.gov
The Science of SpeedA new online series of videos called The Science of Speed reveals the sophisticated science and engineering behind NASCAR racing to teach science. The series can be found on a new website created by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Science360.gov. “NASCAR is built largely on principles of science that produce speed and safety, which is why this marriage makes so much sense. We’re trying to tap into the demographics and enthusiasm of those who follow it and inspire them to learn about science,” says NSF's Jeff Nesbit. To bring the 12-module science video series to computer screens, NSF teamed with NASCAR, the largest sanctioning body of motorsports in the United States, University of Texas at Dallas physics professor Diandra Leslie-Pelecky—author of the book The Physics of NASCAR and Santa Fe Productions, Albuquerque, N.M.
• Moonship Photographed by Backyard Astronomers -NASA
• Long distance space travel might leave you short, fat and ugly -Telegraph.co.uk
• The real science hidden in fairy tales -AIP Inside Science
• Why ET will phone using neutrinos not photons -the physics arXiv blog
• Report: 90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles -The Onion


What's all the hype about SPS?
-By Blakesly Burkhart, Physics Frontline

[W]hat student doesn’t need a support group to keep the magic of physics alive during the tedious times and to occasionally provide a free slice of pizza?  The Society of Physics Students (SPS), sponsored by AIP, does all this and more! ...read more

A New Dawn for Optical Computing
-Blogging The Singularity

It’s a laser, but not as we know it. For a start, you need a microscope to see it. Gleaming eerily green, it is a single spherical particle just a few tens of nanometres across. Tiny it might be, but its creators have big plans for it. With further advances, it could help to fulfil a long-held dream: to build a super-fast computer that computes with light. ...read more

How to Make a Solar Powered USB Charger
-EcoBlogs.net

Turn those so-so solar powered garden lamps into a useful, portable, USB device charger! Solar powered garden lamps were a great idea that just haven’t worked very well. Let me show you to turn these garden lamps into something really useful. ...read more

Google Your Way to Big Science
-Physics Buzz

Google Earth is also a great way to tour big science in all its glory. How, you ask? Well, first download the program. Then make a list of your dream destinations —Fermilab, CERN, KEK in Japan, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory—and fly to each one. ...read more

The Mayans Warned Us: Don't Trespass In Yellowstone
-By Calla Cofield, Cocktail Party Physics

I got to see a preview screening of 2012, the latest in a long line of terrible end-of-the world blockbusters. And you know what? Not that bad! ...read more

More Physics & Science Blogs

Watch our favorite videos from the SPS YouTube Channel

   Home  |  Search   |   Site Map  |   Privacy   |   Contact SPS