My interview

My interviewee is my professor in my physics class, Shina Tan. He is a Chinese. But he has been America for 12 years. My interview is about his opinion about Chinese universities and American universities. Because he had the experiences both in Chinese universities and American universities.

What was your first expression about the difference between Chinese universities and American universities?
ANS: The first expression was that American universities’ campuses are open while Chinese universities’ surrounded by walls.

What about other difference?
ANS:  Many American universities have long history; Chinese universities don’t have as long history as American universities.

What about the opportunities in the USA and in China?
ANS: American universities are stable, which means competition;Chinese universities are expanding very fast, which means more chances.

What is difference about the relationship between teachers and students?
ANS;In the USA, the relationship is more casual. Students can ask freely. But in China, students don't ask question, in order to show respect to their teachers.

Which country is better?
ANS: It is hard to say which is better. But I am accustomed to American life.  

Graphene

Today, I want to introduce a new kind of material. It is graphene.

Graphene. photo by BAIDU.COM

The material is found in 2004 by Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim. They got Nobel prize for the big discover. So you can figure out that how important the material is. But why graphene is important?

In order to understand the importance, we should know the physical structure.Graphene is a kind of  single sheet structure of carbon atoms. It is composed of a carbon atom with sp&sup2 hybrid orbital composition, whose structure is a honeycomb lattice plane film, only one carbon atom two-dimensional layers of material.

The structure determines its unique properties. Graphene is the smallest and the hardest material in the world. It only absorb 2.3% light and the other can go through it. And it is a good conductor for heat and electrons.

 

It is hard to imagine that the material have so many good properties. It already cause a wide research about it. Many applications is experimented now. In the further, our world will be much better with the material that we cannot see by our eyes.

How plane fly

For most people, the reason why planes can fly is not so obvious. Before to understand that, we need to know the Bernoulli principle.

Before further reading, you may interest in an experiment and it will help you to understand the principle better. You prepare two pieces of paper and hold them vertically. When you breath out air into the gap between paper, you will find that the two pieces of paper tend to be close.

According to the experiment, you can conclude that the faster the speed of air, the lower pressure of the air is. The Bernoulli principle says about the mathematical relationship between the velocity of air and the pressure of air. You can watch the video on the top of the blog.

It may be not easy to understand it with out daily common sense. But it does help the plane fly.

How scanner work

Scanners are very useful in our lives. But do you know how do they work? I will make a short introduction of them.

According to the different photosensitive elements, the scanners belong to three different types: CCD, CIS and photo multiplier tube.

CCD is the photosensitive element of our digital cameras. So it is not hard to understand that this type of scanners actually work like cameras. The main difference between camera and scanners is that the scanners only take a picture of  a line of the subject and combine the pictures of different lines into a whole picture of the subject.

CCD(photo by BAIDU.COM)

CIS use photosensitive resistances instead of CCD. The CISs can be very small. But the quality of the picture that the scanners take are very poor when compared to CCD.

Photo multiplier tubes work very different with the other two types. They use the principle that oxide of some material can emit electron when the light beating on them. Another element in the scanners can analysis the electrons flow and get the digit picture of the subject.

Photo multiplier tubes(photo by baidu.com)

What type of your scanners?

Nanomaterials

Nanomaterials, which begin to develop in the 1950s, are a new kind of material. Because of their unique features, they developed very fast and play an important role in modern engineering.

Nanomaterials. This a picture of nanometre flower under the microscope.(photo by BAIDU.COM)

Nanometer material refers to the  materials whose units' sizes are at the nanometer scale range (1-100nm).

The nanomaterials can be classified into 4 types according to the structure of the materials. They are nanometre flower, nanometre fibre, nanometre membrane and nanometre mass.

Even though the new materials do not have a long history, they are widely used now, such as in spaceflights and computers. Many people believe that the new tech is getting more and more important.

If you interest in the field, you can find more information on the Internet.

What is CRT

CRT is short for Cathode Ray Tube. It is true that the technology is out-of-date now. But its principle is quite simple and you may want to make one after you finishing  reading the blog.

CRT. The profile map of CRT. (http://newspaper.li/static/bff350d2a6c72f78100e026098b7e2ad.gif)
Why CRT can display figures?
The high speed electron hit the screen phosphor material to make the lighting.

How to make high speed electron?
Electron guns can produce the electrons.

How we control the figures on the screen?
We take advantage that electron deflect in the magnetic field. If you know how the signal is coded, you can decoding the signal into the magnitude of the magnetic field.

How to make vacuum

It is easy to understand that chemical reactions can reduce the pressure of the air inside a closed volume. For instance, we can burn white phosphorous in a closed container and the air pressure of the container will reduce about 20%.

However, it is not a good enough idea to apply into practice. Because not all the components in the air can participate burning reaction and burning is very dangerous. Maybe white phosphorous is very expensive.

In our practice, we usually use physical reaction instead of chemical reaction to make vacuum. There are two kinds of vacuum pump to make vacuum. The definition 'vacuum' is 'relative vacuum' or 'approximate vacuum'. Actually, the complete vacuum is impossible.

Positive displacement pumps. It is one of the mechanism that can achieve the goal.(make by wikipedia.org)

The first kind is positive displacement pumps. They repeatedly expand the volume of the container, attract gases into the chamber and exhaust the extra gases. If the process goes many times, the air pressure will go down greatly.

The second kind is the Entrapment pumps. The use some material ,like activated carbon, to absorb the molecules. This kind of material work efficiently and cost more.

Of course, there are other kinds of vacuum pumps.

So it sounds easy to make a vacuum pumps by yourself?

Wind Damper

Today, I want to introduce another device. This device is very important to skyscrapers.

Our buildings are get taller and taller. If the building high enough, the people on the top of the building will feel the swaying of the building when the wind is strong.

Wind Damper. A metal ball in the tall building. It can reduce the sway greatly. Without it, you may be afraid of being on the top of buildings.

 

The most important part is the metal ball. They can weigh hundreds of tons  in some buildings.

The principle of the device is that a detector outside the building measures the wind. And it will sent a signal to a specialized computer. Then, the computer will forecast the sway of the building will be and control the ball to sway in the opposite direction to neutralize the oscillation. So the buildings only sway slightly.

Most skyscrapers in the world have install this kind of equipments. Next time you visit a skyscraper, you can take a look at the device.

How do pilot know the speed of plane

 

With the help of modern radio tech, the ground bases can send the planes’ velocity to the pilots. But do you wander how pilots knew the velocity before the radio tech developed. I want to introduce the general idea of the devices which were used to measure the velocity. So people use other methods to measure the speed.

People know that we can measure the angular velocity of wheels which linearly proportion to the velocity. But the plane flies without wheels. They take advantage of the pressure of air.

Pitots.This is the device which can measure the speed of the plane.(photo by Baidu)

 

 

It is pitots that pilots can use to know the speed. Even modern planes have advanced radio devices, most planes still have pitots. It means that the pitots are practical devices.

The device has a hole on the front of the plane. When the plane flies, air will flow into the hole and hit the inductor inside the devices. The inductor can measure the force of crash. The faster the plane flies, the bigger the force is. They have some kind mathematical relation. So pilots can figure out the velocity by knowing the force.

Hot water or cold water freeze first

Is it a question?

 Many people do not think it is a question. Because it is obvious that cold water will freeze first. However, yout intuition falls again. Actually, it is a tough question which is not explained by sicientists. I will introduce this problem in the blog.

A student named Mpemba found that the hot water will freeze first than cold water. He introduced the phenomenon to public. Does his experiment was right?

Actually, many other scientist did it again and got the similiar results. Butall the results were same. There were some other experiments indicated that cold water freezes much faster than the hot water.

So which was right and which is wrong? The scientist did not find the answer. Both of the results are reasonable. The phenomenon had been found about 40 years and still make scientists confused.

But one thing is certain that in some situation hot water will freeze first.

You can do an experiment in your refrigerator. Tell me your result.

Believe your eyes

 

Sometimes, we can determine whether a structure is stable or not from our intuition, even we do not learn any physics ideas. We got that kind of intuition from our daily experience. However, the daily experience can be very tricky. Look at the picture below, do you believe they are really existed or some magics.



 



The answer is they are true.  SURPRISE! OK, let me to explain the principal with the second picture. We consider the hammer and stick is a whole system. The system is stable because it has two equivalent forces: the supporting force of the desk and the gravity of the earth. As long as the two forces are in a line, the system has a chance to be stable. In the second picture, the most mass concerns in the head of hammer. The supporting force exists on the left side of the stick. If we design the configuration, the two forces are in a line. Second, we should consider the rotation of the system. Similarly, we can design the configuration in order to let the stick has a zero torque.

 

So believe your eyes, even though it may unbelievable.

How to choose interesting books

Sometimes we find it is very hard to find an interesting book. On one hand, we want to read books. On the other hand, we seldom find them. So it gives rise to a question: how to find an interesting book.

But this Thanksgiving vocation, I found an interesting book. It is QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.

QED. QED is an abbreviation for quantum electrodynamics. The book introduces an complicated theory in a simple way. You can see how one of the most great scientists understand and apply knowledge.(photo by AMAZON.COM)

 

 

Now I want to talk about my experience about how to find the book.  I wandered on the street and had nothing to do. Suddenly, I found a B&N BOOKSTORE on other side of the street. So I decided to take a look at the bookstore.

 

It was a cozy store. A rug covered the floor. The temperature was comfortable. There were many people silently reading inside the store. It was comfortable for reading. So I took a walk around the store. Sometimes, I found some interesting books and scanned the contents or prefaces of them. I need not to buy a book until I found a real interesting book. At last, I found this book. I read the preface of the book and liked it immediately. So I decided to buy it. Now I read the book every day. I thought it was a right choice to buy the book.

 

If you want to find some books to read, why not go into a bookstore? It is my suggestion. Do you agree or disagree. What is your suggestion?

 

 

My thanksgiving thanks

Today is a big day. It is the Thanksgiving Day.It is an old tradition of America.Its origin is a ceremony of harvest and show thanks to nature or gold. Now the festival becomes an best chance when people show their thanks to others.

There are a lot things I want to thank, Such as families, friends and nature.

Families are usually the most important people in our liefs. Parents gave me birth and bought me up.Under their protection, I grow up healthily and developed many important values in my childhood. They influenced me so much that I still keep them now. So I am very thankful to my parents. Now I have a happy life. I also wish they are happy every day.

Jia. This is the character meaning family in Chinese.

I grew up with my friends. Different with my parents, we influenced each other.We helped each others when one of us met some difficulties. We also shared our opinions and feelings. By that means, I learnt to understand others feelings and learn the importance of teamwork. Friends are treasures that we choose in our lives.

My friends. We just won a football match when we took this photo. We met some difficultie during the game. But we worked together and overcome them. So we were very happy.It is an honour of us.

Humans belong to nature. So I should thanks it for all the things I get. Health, food, happiness and glad world. With a strong body, I can do sport anytime and go anywhere pleasent. With delicious food, eating is a enjoyment. With happiness, I have a lot of hopes for the furture and treature what I have now. With beautiful world, I want to explore more different field.

 

When I write down all the things I should thank, I notice that I do have a happy life.  If you write down your thanks, things you never think about may come to your mind!

Eight pictures of my present life

This is my American life. As a visiting student in USA, my life changes a lot now. I think ‘busy’ and ‘fresh’ can describe my present life. Ok, let us take a look at my life through eight pictures.

 

 

Fried Rice. This is my lunch. Because I do not know how to make American food, I can only make Chinese food. One day, I bought a bag of rice in Walmart and the cashier told to me that you do love rice. Oh, I admit that rice is a good symbol for Asian tradition.

Desk. When I took this picture, I just finished my whole weekends to prepare my physics midterm test. My desk was totally in a mess. It is a clue that my American life is busy.

 

My favorite clothes.  Just a regular sport coat. But it is very comfortable. I like doing sport with it, going to school with it and going to party with it. In my opinion, comfort is the most important thing for clothes. Fashion is the second thing when I choose clothes.

My shoes. They are a pair of running shoes. Actually, I rarely run in American. But I always prepare me for sport. Sometimes, I have a strong desire to do sport. If I go back my room to change my suit into sport clothes, the feeling will disappear. I hate that. So I always wear running shoes.

Roommate. My roommate is another visiting student from China. I like the fried rice that he cooks. In the picture, he was going to cook. Oh, my great roommate.

Homework. As I said, my life is busy, because I spent a lot of time on my physics class. Every week, I have to finish five problems, which are usually very difficult. But I have a sense of achievement after I finish it. I love the physics course.

Trees.This picture was took from my window. I call these trees are ‘the most common trees’. Because every time I look outside, I would see them.

Camera in my hand. This is a picture for my blogging course. From the class I learn that it is interesting that I take a record of my daily life with modern media methods. Through blogs, I can share my experience and feelings with others and review my former life. I hope I could keep the blog for a long period.

 

As a visiting student in USA, I keep part of my own customs and change part of my customs. This is my daily life, a busy and partly fresh life. What is your life? Do you have something you want to share with us?

Dialectical unity of simplicity and complexicity

One of the philosophy of our world is the dialectical unity of simplicity and complexity. The simple things have a complicated cause. And the complicated things may look simple. It is tricky for careless persons.I want to reveal the regularity in this essay.



 

 

Horologe.This is a Chinese ancient clock. Even though it looks simple, it contains Chinese ancient civilization.It was created after Chinese noticed that earth and sun have a unchanged relationship and the relation could be very useful together with geometry. Chinese calendar deeply dependent the simple tools. (photo by gettyimages)

 

 

Vitruvian Man. This is a famous painting of  Leonardo da Vinci.It is about the perfect structure of human.People is the most complicated creature in the world, despite that people is the most familiar creature to us. In the picture, you may get some ideas that you never think about. You will feel amazed after you read the picture.(draw by Leonardo da Vinci )

Watch. Have you ever look at your watch carefully? If you have, do you feel curious about how it works? Watches are a kind of complicated work in human manufacture. The gears axis and springs gather and become a complicated Industrial artwork.(photo by wigand)

 

Iron Man. Even though iron man is fictitious, it can represents the values of human. The finial purpose of industry is complexity. As the same time, people want the dedicate products have a concise appearances and friendly operation. That is the beauty of industry civilization.(create by IRON MAN)

Segway.Science is an amazing thing. It has the magic to overthrow our intuition. How can it walk,with only 2 wheels? Actually, it is not a very difficult theory but a wonderful idea.(create by Segway)


In our lives, we always find that sophisticated devices make our work easier. This is the science's fascination. Do you have the feeling in your life? Please share with us.

The Litany Of My Friend

You are the tree and the stream,
the white china and the crystal.
You are the rainbow on the fresh sky,
and the red leaf of the maple.
You are the cold light of the moon
and the brilliant star in the night.


However, you are not the book in the library
the drug on the hospital,
or the mouse of computers.
And you are certainly not the black-color pencil.
There is just no way you are the black-color pencil.

It is possible that you are the fish in the ocean,
maybe even the hawk fly in the sky,
but you are not even close
to being the tiger in the forest.

And  a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the king in the empire
nor the soldier fight in the battlefield.

It may interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,                                                   
that I am the color of painting on the wall.

I also happen to be the transparent lens,
the delicious food on the sheet in a market                                      
and the ripe apple on the tree in the fruit garden.

 

The pictures are from wwww.soso.com

This I Believe In Truth

People always have their principles, which determine what to do and what not to do. I think this kind of principles are beliefs. We seldom or never doubt our beliefs. Because we take them for granted. But there are a big difference among people's. There is an interesting blog about various beliefs belong to different people. If you take a look at it, you can find some people have the similar beliefs with you and some don't. The blog is: 'this i believe'.

Do you want to the story behind the picture? Is it a happy story or a sad story? What is the real life of military families? If you are interesing in it, you can go ahead to that website.This picture is from that blog.

My belief is truth. People can never change the truth but can take advantage it. I learned it from my own experience.

what is life? What is world? There are so many things people don't know. So what should we believe in?

When I was young, I read a lot. When the authors wanted to convince the audience, they always gave a lot of rules, laws and evidence. And I found I always be persuaded by the authors. So I noticed that the truth is powerful. No matter what your personal opinion, the truth is objective. Even though I want to suspend in the air, I must obey the gravity. On the other hand, if I know something about magnetic suspension, I also can achieve that. This is why truth is powerful. We must obey them but we can also use them.

So what is your belief? Do you have some unique beliefs and want to share with us?

My Five Favorite Blogs

There is a Chinese old saying: it is merry when friends meet. It means people feel excited when they meet somebody who share same hobbies with them.That saying can describe my feeling about the blog when I recognize some blogs that have same topic with mine. I found them on the Google search with key words, like 'physices science' and 'apply science'.

Physics education:
This blog is about Internet technology. And its goal to achieve online learning for audience.I think the blog is kind of professional. This blog have a lot of articles.If you have some interests in Internet, you may find some useful articles.

Physicsism:
This blog maybe created by a physicist. Even though the blog did not post articles very much, people can still find something interesting there. The blog talked a lot of professional knowledge, but the blogger explained them in an easy way, which make the knowledge acceptable. Besides, the blog contains many beautiful picture. You can see how beautiful the physics is.

Way to Success:
This blog is about geography, which have a closed relationship with our daily life. And I add the blog to my list because the blog talked a lot about the methods of science. It is instructional. I can learn how to explain my idea to others in this blog. Plus, the blog has sufficient information.So you can take a look at this blog.

Computer Science Blog:
This blog is about the computer skills. Sometime we feel confused in front of computers. This blog contains useful knowledge which you need to know.For instance, in 'the 15 things every user need to know', I found something may improve my computer skills which will save a lot of time in the future.And as other computer blog, this one also contains multimedia methods to show the ideas.

Science Blog:
This is also a professional blog about science. It has the latest news about science and it covers many branches of science.Every article is not very long and don't contains very terms.They just tell the news about science improvements.So you may find some of you interests when you scan the blog.
The blog's template is very colorful.

So you can take a walk through the five blogs to see what is interesting. If you find some features you think can be put on my blog and can perfect it, please leave a comment to me. Your advice is appreciated.Thank you for you support.

Get Ready For Creating

Welcome to my blog! This is my first blog. I am very excited about it and hope it becoming a very helpful and interesting blog for my audience.This blog is about how knowledge can be applied into practice.

we do spent a lot of time in school. Do you feel happy about your school life?If you find your interests, the time would be amazing.

I am a physics student who has studied physics knowledge for many year but still puzzle how to apply them. So I decide to create the blog to study how physics knowledge is applied in our life. It Will l be a place to share my experience. At the same time, I also look forward to your comments. I wish this blog can be an efficient communication platform.

For example: How to make fire when you lost your lighter in winter. We can apply our optical knowledge to make a convex lens to focus light on the wood. It is a very simple example of practicing what we already known. My blog is going to teach you how to make that 'convex lens' kind of things.

So if you are interested in the science and practice, my blog will be a good choice for you to read.And I also invest you to add your comments on my blog to share your opinions with other audience and me.

This a photo of ice convex len. It is practicable.The picture is from:http://www.netyoume.cn/bbs/data/post-img/200801/22/10332423.jpg