Emily Lakdawalla on Twitter

Science on Twitter

There are many negatives with social media but also many positives. Among those positives is the great number of amazing scientists using Twitter to share science news! Not only are there scientists, but there are telescopes and rovers with their own Twitter accounts sharing their findings. You just have to use social media in such a way the positives outweigh the negatives. Following scientists is a great way to gain those positives.

Emily Lakdawalla

Emily Lakdawalla (@elakdawalla) is someone you MUST follow on Twitter. There should be no debate about this! She is the senior editor of the Planetary Society and is constantly (okay, not constantly, but quite often) posting science news. Her tweets help keep me up to date in the field of planetary science. She's also written a book, The Design and Engineering of Curiosity: How the Mars Rover Performs Its Job, that has a five-star rating on Amazon. I haven't read it yet, but it's now on my to-read list!

Seriously, you should follow Emily Lakdawalla on Twitter!

All-Time #1 Post

History of The Cool Science Dad Blog

I started this blog nearly seven years ago in May 2012 as a way to share the different science demos and experiments I was doing with my much-younger-than-they-are-now kids. At the time my kids were 5 and 1! They are now 11 and 8 and keep growing older! The blog started with many posts on different science experiments/demos. Although we still do science demos/experiments, I have fewer posts on these and more posts on other aspects of science as it fills our lives. In other words, the blog has evolved in seven years, as expected.

The #1 Post of All-Time

I love numbers and stats, so from time to time I take a look at the top viewed posts since the start of this blog seven years ago. To date, there are over 356,000 total page views spread among over 1,800 posts. The #1 viewed post as of this writing? That would be one of the first posts I wrote on the egg-drop experiment, a very common high school physics activity that I've done with students many times. I no longer teach physics in my current role at my school, so I kind of miss this, but I still get to do the egg-drop experiment with the occasional outreach program for elementary kids I host.

How many views? This egg-drop experiment post currently has just over 25,000 views, or approximately 7% of all blog views! Wow! I'm guessing there are a lot of students out there doing the egg-drop experiment in their physics classes, and therefore a lot of students searching the web for egg-drop experiment ideas. So without further adieu, here's the link to the most viewed post on this blog.

The Egg-Drop Experiment

Agatha Christie

Love of Books

I love books and am always on the look out for new (or old) authors and new series to read. I have far too many books at home, but I keep adding to my collection and I highly doubt I'll ever stop!

Agatha Christie

As a teenager I remember coming across an Agatha Christie mystery novel my parents owned. I read it, but it didn't stick with me and I never read another Christie novel until recently. With public libraries now offering many e-books not available in physical form, it's much easier to check out and read books for free without purchasing them. Thus, when I found my library offers many, if not most Agatha Christie books in e-book form, I jumped at the chance to check a few out.

Hercule Poirot

I decided to start with Christie's Hercule Poirot detective series. Poirot is a short, elderly Belgium detective who is quite full of himself, but also quite good at solving mysteries. Christie started the Poirot series in the early 1920's, so the writing style is very different from mystery novels today. Christie's books are not the same thriller murder mystery books you commonly find today. Instead, her novels focus on a deep look at the evidence found at the scene of a crime and the connection between characters. Every character as a closer connection with every other character, making it very difficult to determine who committed the crime until the very end.

Poirot has a side-kick, Hastings, who is often as clueless as I am in figuring out who did it. LOL! I've only read the first few Poirot books, but overall I have a much greater appreciation for Agatha Christie's novels now, as an adult, than I did when I was a teenager. They are well worth a read!

What Is #12: A Frostquake

The 'What Is' Series

A couple of months ago I started a new series on this blog titled "What Is". Thus far the focus is on the field of astronomy where we hear all sorts of cool science taking place in space. The goal of this series is to explain the details of different objects we hear about relatively frequently.

Very Cold Weather

Today's topic in this series is not directly related to astronomy, but is connected to Earth science and is very applicable to this year's winter in the United States. Thus I'm including it in this series. Much of the United States experienced very cold temperatures and wind chills at the end of January 2019. The jet stream dipped very far south, bringing cold arctic air to lower latitudes. Areas of the United States experienced wind chills as cold as -60 degrees Fahrenheit. Where I live we had a low wind chill of -39 degrees. BRRRRRR!!!!

Very cold temperatures can also be bring some weird noises that include creaking and moaning of your house. That is normal and happens to every house and happens frequently. What doesn't happen all that often are loud booms called frostquakes.

Frostquakes

The official name of frostquakes is cryoseism, but frostquake has a sexier sound to it. Frostquakes occur when water in the ground freezes, causing the pressure to build up in the ground. When this pressure is released, a loud boom can occur. Frostquakes normally don't happen as the pressure is usually slowly released. But if the ground has a lot of water in it and temperatures drop very quickly, the water freezes quickly and the pressure builds up quickly. Without a slow release of this pressure, it releases at once and produces a loud boom known as a frostquake.

This winter is one of the very few I've experienced where I've heard frostquakes. I've heard a couple this year. The first occurred when I was sitting in the living room. The temperature had dropped quickly and the house was creaking and moaning. All of a sudden there was a boom outside the exterior wall. At first I thought something had struck the house, but the boom sounded a bit too deep for that. It was later when I read about frostquakes that I realized what I heard.

So there you go. Frostquakes.

This Blog's History: Ticket to Ride Europe

This Blog's History

Starting several years ago, every Friday I link back to a previous post I wrote. Why? I may be biased, but I think there's quite a bit of good, exciting science I post on this blog, and I like to revisit these old posts. Plus it is a way for new readers to see many of the cool science experiments I've done with my kids in the past without reading the blog from day one, which was over 1,000 posts ago!

Ticket to Ride Europe

We love the original Ticket to Ride board game so we recently purchased the Europe edition. Just as fun with a few very interesting tweaks! Thus far we've had a ton of fun playing it as a family!

Where do I go?

For the original post, click the link below. This links to the original post I wrote a couple of years ago.

Ticket to Ride Europe

Stuff You Should Know Podcast

Science Podcasts

I'm a big fan of science themed podcasts, as any reader of this blog knows. I'm constantly on the lookout for new science podcasts. Some I've kept on my must-listen to list for years. Others come and go as my mood changes. But as far as I'm concerned, there can never be too many science podcasts out there. I recently discovered a few, new to me, science podcasts that are great!

Stuff You Should Know Podcast

The Stuff You Should Know podcast is a great podcast that informs you about, you guessed it, stuff you should know!  The podcast is hosted by Chuck Bryant and Josh Clark and each week they bring something new to their podcast. For example, one of the more recent episodes I listed to was a short episode talking about thread counts in bed sheets. It may not seem that interesting of a topic, but it was good to learn that higher thread counts do not necessary improve the quality of bed sheets, despite the quick increase in costs for higher thread count sheets. An upcoming episode I'm about to listen to takes a look at Central Park in New York City and how it works. Very cool stuff! This is a great podcast I encourage you to check out!

Stuff You Should Know Podcast

Science Fair: Solar Cell Efficiency

Science Fairs

Science fairs are a fantastic way of introducing the scientific method to kids and getting them excited about doing science! The goal of a science fair project is to pick a question, develop a hypothesis, experiment, and draw conclusions from the data that support or don't support the original hypothesis. A perfect way to put science in action! My 11 year old has participated in a science fair each of the last three years and is doing so again this year.

Solar Cell Efficiency

This year my daughter decided to test the efficiency of solar cells under different scenarios. We purchased a small solar cell and she grabbed a multi-meter to measure the output voltage of the cell. She tested the following.

1. Output voltage vs. distance from the light source. This was more a less a test to see if the solar cell was working properly. Obviously the closer the cell is to the source, the greater the output voltage. And that is exactly what she observed.
2. Output voltage vs. type of light bulb. My daughter compared an incandescent bulb, fluorescent bulb, and LED bulb of the same brightness (lumens) and measured the voltage output on the cell. Turns out the type of bulb matters, even when the brightness is the same. An incandescent bulb emits a lot more infrared light, picked up by the solar cell.
3. Output voltage versus light angle. This was the first of the real tests. How does the output voltage change as the angle of light changes? This plays an important role in determining how best to install industrial solar cells. She knew there would be a change, but is it a linear change with angle or another type of functional change?
4. Output voltage versus temperature. Admittedly I did not know how this one would turn out. My daughter hypothesized that the temperature of the cell would have no effect on the output voltage. After testing, however, she learned there's a clear change in output voltage with solar cells being much more effective when cold, compared to hot. Interesting!

The presentation of her project at the fair is coming up, and she is excited! This is her first year in the next division. Previously she was always in the elementary division and now she's in the middle school division with an opportunity to advance on to the state competition. Exciting stuff!

February 2019 Supermoon

Coming up in a couple of days is the second "supermoon" of 2019. The first was on January 21. A supermoon isn't really super. It just refers to the Moon in its full phase when it happens to be slightly closer to Earth. Since the Moon takes a slightly elliptical path around Earth, there are times when it is slightly closer and times when it is slightly farther away. When it's slightly closer it will appear slightly larger and brighter in the sky. SLIGHTLY. In fact, unless you observe the Moon very carefully and very often, you are unlikely to notice any difference in the Moon's size when it is a supermoon.

Full Moon by Kiefer. from Frankfurt, Germany - 07.Sep.2014

People have a tendency to convince themselves the Moon is extra big but that is only because they are told the Moon is slightly larger. If you weren't told the Moon was appearing slightly larger, you wouldn't think anything of it. 

By all means go out and look at the Moon in February, but ignore all the hype and flat out lies about the Moon being HUGE in the sky. Supermoons happen all the time. They are real events, but the change in the Moon's size on the sky is only a very slight change. 

Polar Vortex Science

Cold, Cold, Cold!!!

At the very end of January, much of the United States experienced a blast of cold, arctic air that dropped temperatures to dangerous levels. Add in very strong wind, and wind chills were as low as -60 degrees Fahrenheit. Where I live, wind chills dipped as low as -39 degrees and all schools, including colleges, were cancelled. Many record colds were set in the U.S. This means climate change is a not real, right? WRONG!!!

Polar Vortex and Climate Change

In fact, the polar vortex is linked to climate change. The warming of the arctic and loss of sea ice makes the southward movement of the jet stream more likely. This brings very cold air from the arctic to southern latitudes. But don't take my word for it. Here is a fantastic article that explains the polar vortex and how it is linked to climate change.

How polar vortex blasts are tied to global warming

Many have joked about climate change in light of the recent cold weather, but those jokes show great ignorance and complete misunderstanding of how weather differs from climate. Yes, it was cold in the U.S., but much of the rest of the world was baking. And a few days after the polar vortex in the U.S.? Temperatures were 20 to 30 degrees above normal.

The conclusion? Climate change is real and weather events such as the polar vortex, are direct predictions of a warming global climate.

This Blog's History: What is a Brown Dwarf?

This Blog's History

Starting several years ago, every Friday I link back to a previous post I wrote. Why? I may be biased, but I think there's quite a bit of good, exciting science I post on this blog, and I like to revisit these old posts. Plus it is a way for new readers to see many of the cool science experiments I've done with my kids in the past without reading the blog from day one, which was over 1,000 posts ago!

What is a Brown Dwarf?

The term 'dwarf' is used a lot in astronomy to describe many different types of stars. A Brown Dwarf is an object that didn't quite become a star. It fell short of being large enough to fuse hydrogen to helium in the core. There's much more to it, but that is a very basic description of a Brown Dwarf. To learn more, click the link below to go to the original post on the topic.

Where do I go?

For the original post, click the link below. This links to the original post I wrote a couple of years ago.

What is a Brown Dwarf?

What Is #11: A Black Dwarf

The 'What Is' Series

A couple of months ago I started a new series on this blog titled "What Is". Thus far the focus is on the field of astronomy where we hear all sorts of cool science taking place in space. The goal of this series is to explain the details of different objects we hear about relatively frequently.

Stars

I have recently covered Brown Dwarfs and White Dwarfs. Brown Dwarfs are objects that were not quite large enough to fuse hydrogen, so they never reached full star status. White Dwarfs are the final stage of a low mass star such as the Sun. After these low mass stars shed away their outer layers, the stellar core leftover is called a White Dwarf. Another type of star is a Black Dwarf. How does a Black Dwarf differ from Brown and White Dwarfs?

Black Dwarfs

A Black Dwarf is a stage of a low mass star, such as the Sun, after the White Dwarf stage. A White Dwarf is the leftover core of a low mass star after it sheds its outer atmospheric layers. Fusion no longer takes place in the star, but it slowly releases the energy it has built up. Eventually all of that energy is released and the object becomes a Black Dwarf. The color black is used to signify the lack of any remaining energy.

The Universe, however, is not old enough for any Black Dwarfs to yet exist!!! At "only" 13.8 billion years old, another "few" billion years are needed for the first Black Dwarf to exist. The oldest White Dwarfs are still releasing energy and are therefore still White Dwarfs. Some estimates suggest another 100 million billion years are needed for the first Black Dwarf to appear. WOW! So don't get excited for finding one yet!

Science Fair: Measuring the Strength of Tape

Science Fairs

Science fairs are a fantastic way of introducing the scientific method to kids and getting them excited about doing science! The goal of a science fair project is to pick a question, develop a hypothesis, experiment, and draw conclusions from the data that support or don't support the original hypothesis. A perfect way to put science in action! My 8 year old was old enough to enter her school's science fair for the first time this year. Prior to the start of the year I sat down with her and we brainstormed some different experiment ideas. After some careful consideration she decided to test the strength of various types of tape on different surfaces. A great starter project for her first science fair.

Testing the Strength of Tape

She found five different types of tape around the house: duct tape, masking tape, scotch tape, packing tape, and T-Rex tape. I helped her set up a simple experiment in which she stuck a piece of string to a material using a piece of tape. She next hung weights from the string until it ripped away from the tape. The amount of weight the string held was an indicator of the strength of the tape.

She hypothesized the duct tape would be the strongest because it felt stickier, a very reasonable observation. Each attempt was repeated three times for each of the three types of tape and then repeated for dry wood, wet wood, dry metal, and wet metal for the surface. Duct tape was the strongest for three of the materials, but she was surprised to find duct tape would not stick at all to wet wood. Scotch tape actually did a better job sticking to wet wood than any of the other types of tape.

Setup used to measure tape strength.

Science Fair Results

My daughter worked hard on her project, both with the experimentation, poster construction, and preparation to explain to the judges. Science is much more than experimentation. Good scientists are great communicators. After the judging we found out later in the evening at the public science fair night at the school that she earned first place among all third grade projects and third place among all 3rd/4th/5th grade projects! She was super excited and had a ton of fun with her first science fair project. 

It's not over yet though. Her first place finish earned her a spot in the regional science fair that is coming up. So more to come!

Transformers 5: The Last Knight

Transformers Movie Series

Here we go again, for the fifth time! As a family we have now watched all of the Transformer movies that are out, which makes five of them. Bumblebee is still in the theater and there's a seventh and maybe eighth planned and/or in production, but of the five out on DVD, we have now watched them all. The latest Transformers movie sees Optimus Prime play the role of bad dude, at least for awhile.

Transformers 5: The Last Knight

The fifth Transformers movie finds Optimus Prime tricked into destroying Earth. Fortunately for Earth, and the future of the Transformers movie series, the day is saved and Optimus Prime is brought back to the good side. I was a bit saddened to see most of the movie being Optimus-free given the large emphasis on his attempt to destroy Earth. And his turn back to the good side didn't take long, given it was a 2.5 hour movie.

I really don't have much more to say about these Transformers movies. They are fun to watch, but they are basically repeats of each other. Humans are stupid and make stupid mistakes. Autobots help humans. There are some evil Transformers working with evil humans. Autobots and good humans win. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. :-)

This Blog's History: Taco Sauce Penny Cleaner

This Blog's History

Starting several years ago, every Friday I link back to a previous post I wrote. Why? I may be biased, but I think there's quite a bit of good, exciting science I post on this blog, and I like to revisit these old posts. Plus it is a way for new readers to see many of the cool science experiments I've done with my kids in the past without reading the blog from day one, which was over 1,000 posts ago!

Taco Sauce Penny Cleaner Experiment

If you've ever looked at a penny, you'll notice it is very dirty, unless you happen to come along a recently made penny that is still bright and shiny. Cleaning a penny is usually not on anyone's priority list, but there are several cool science experiments you can do that clean a penny. One is taco sauce. Yes, taco sauce will clean your penny! I won't give it away, but click the link below to see how we tested this at our home.

Where do I go?

For the original post, click the link below. This links to the original post I wrote a couple of years ago.

Taco Sauce Penny Cleaner

Book Reading Progress

Yesterday I shared my counting of books we own as a family, arriving at a total of 1,362. That reminded me it's time for my annual sharing of my book reading progress over the last year. Warning: There is a fair amount of geekiness coming!

I keep a journal of every book I've read, dating back to 2003 when I started my book journal. I've also started keep track of these in Goodreads. At the start of each year I add to an Excel graph I started several years ago so I can see the rate at which I'm reading. Here's the newly updated chart that includes books read in 2018.

The solid, straight line is the best fit line to the data graphed as the bumpy line. The graph shows that since the start of 2004, I've averaged 36 books per year. However, there was an uptick in my reading rate around 2011. Since then I've averaged slightly more than 40 books read per year. Last year, 2018, I read 40 books. 

So what does this all mean? First, it shows that I'm quite the geek if I keep a reading journal, make charts, and use trend-lines to analyze my reading rate! Second, it gives an idea of how many books I'll finish in my lifetime. Let's assume I live to the ripe old age of 85 and keep up a pace of 40 books per year. I'm almost 40, so that is 45 more years of life. 45*40 = 1800. I have 1800 books left in me. How long is my to-read list? Well, longer than 1800 books!!!! :-)

How Many Books?

How many books do you own? I asked myself that very question a short while ago and decided to find out by counting. Here's what I came up with:

Books on main book shelves: 378
Books on Kindle in ebook form: 344
Books on shelves at office: 154
Books in kids' rooms: 483
Books found in car: 3

This counting revealed we own 1,362 books! Wow! My conclusion from this finding? We don't own enough books! Anything less than infinity is not enough books owned! So the next goal is owning 1500 books! :-)

#LoveToRead

October Sky

Family Movie Night

When we can, we like to have family movie nights. We make some popcorn, cuddle up on the couch, and now that it's winter, start up a fire in the fireplace. It's a wood burning fireplace so it gives of the authentic crackling and popping sounds of burning wood. Our most recent family movie night was a viewing of the 1999 movie, October Sky. I own this movie, but it had been many, many years since I had last seen it. Probably more than a decade.

October Sky

October Sky is based on the true story of Homer Hickam and his life growing up in Coalwood, West Virginia. The movie is based on Hickam's book, Rocket Boys.

I have not yet read the book but it is on my to-read list. The movie starts with Hickam as a teenager, set during the early space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Hickam becomes interested in rocketry and begins building rockets with plans to enter a local science fair. The timing of us watching this movie was perfect as it was just a few days before my youngest daughter's first science fair!

Although the building and launching of rockets is great, it is not what makes this movie great. The movie also details what life is like in mining country in West Virginia. Jobs outside of mining are scarce and very few make it out of town. The mine is dying and miners are losing their jobs, homes, etc. There is very little consideration in anything that doesn't work toward bringing mining jobs back. It is depressing in many ways. This portrayal of mining life in West Virginia, combined with the excitement of rockets is what makes this movie great.

Early in the movie there is a scene of Hickam leaving his house. At this point I paused the movie and told my kids that I've seen that house. Well, not the house in the movie as it was filmed in Tennessee, but I have driven by the actual Homer Hickam boyhood home in Coalwood, WV. This occurred a couple of years ago on a school trip to West Virginia. I'm not sure my kids were excited as I was. It was more or less a "that's nice Daddy" moment. LOL!

If you haven't seen October Sky, it's a great family movie. If you haven't read the book, Rocket Boys, do so. I know I will. 

The Next Lunar Eclipse

There was a lunar eclipse visible from the U.S. a couple of weeks ago on January 20/21, but apparently I forgot to write up a post on it before the day passed! So to make up for that, let me talk a little bit about lunar eclipses and when you can next see one.

What is a Lunar Eclipse?

I'll have to write a more detailed post in the "What Is?" series, but to put it simply, a lunar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Moon, and Earth are aligned such that Earth blocks the light of the Sun from reaching the Moon's surface. During a lunar eclipse, Earth casts its shadow onto the Moon. This is illustrated below (including the occurrence of a solar eclipse when the Moon blocks light from reaching Earth.

Solar/Lunar eclipse diagram by Tomruen

January 20/21, 2019 Lunar Eclipse

The lunar eclipse on the night of January 20 and the morning of January 21 was the first total lunar eclipse visible from the U.S. since September 2015. Depending on where you were located you may have had clear skies and if so, hopefully you took advantage and took a look at it. Fortunately we did and it wasn't a school night with MLK the next day. It was super duper cold, but we stayed up until midnight, braved the cold for a few minutes, and watched an awesome lunar eclipse! It was amazing to see the Moon turn a slight brownish/reddish color during totality, which is the result of some light from the Sun bending through Earth's atmosphere to strike the Moon and reflect back to Earth as orange/brown/red light.

Next Total Lunar Eclipse

If you missed this total lunar eclipse, your next opportunity depends on where you live. The next total lunar eclipse most of the U.S. can see is May 2022. There is a total lunar eclipse in May 2021, but most of the world will not see totality, aside from those living in Australia and some of the south pacific islands. Mark the May 2022 eclipse on your calendar now!

This Blog's History: Oil and Water Experiment

This Blog's History

Starting several years ago, every Friday I link back to a previous post I wrote. Why? I may be biased, but I think there's quite a bit of good, exciting science I post on this blog, and I like to revisit these old posts. Plus it is a way for new readers to see many of the cool science experiments I've done with my kids in the past without reading the blog from day one, which was over 1,000 posts ago!

Oil and Water Experiment

A classic science experiment you can do with your kids when they are young is a mixing of oil and water. Simply fill a glass or bowl of water with vegetable oil (or any other type of cooking oil). Then watch the two separate due to the differences in their densities! It's a great example of density and separation of liquids. If you are feeling bold you can try mixing other liquids to see how they separate.

Where do I go?

For the original post, click the link below. This links to the original post I wrote a couple of years ago.

Oil and Water Experiment