So What Would Happen if Superman Punched You in the Face?

Man of Steel is out and if you want to get your eyes pummeled with insane fight sequences, I suggest you watch it. But what if Superman actually wanted to pummel your face instead? What would a punch by Superman feel like? A lot worse than even getting punched by Mike Tyson.

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The Impossible History of Perpetual Motion

The Impossible History of Perpetual Motion

On November 12th, 1717, clockmaker and mechanic Johann Bessler placed a 12-foot diameter, strange-looking wheel into a room. With a tender push, he started the contraption rotating, then confidently turned and strolled outside. Guards promptly secured and locked the door behind him. Nobody would be allowed to enter the room for two weeks, lest the machine be tampered with. Perpetual motion machines are finicky gadgets, you see.

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Stairwell Illusion Will Make You Question The Law Of Physics

After watching the following video of what seems to be a never-ending set of stairs that is located in a stairwell at the Rochester Institute of Technology, we’re not sure exactly if it’s a exceptionally well-done video prank, or if there really is something to these stairs that cause its climbers to go appear to go nowhere whether they climb or descend them.

The continuous staircase illusion was created by architect Rafael Nelson Aboganda and is somehow able to make it seem like you haven’t moved to a new floor when you reach the bottom or the top of the stairs. Apparently, these stairs are well known at the Rochester Institute of Technology as a number of people interviewed during the video segment have joked saying they have challenged friends to race them to the top of the stairs.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: The Email Guitar Lets You Shred Your Way To Responding To Correspondences, Man Solves Three Rubik’s Cubes While Juggling,

    

Physics teacher adopts Google Glass, gives students a glance at CERN (video)

Physics teacher adopts Google Glass, gives students a firsthand look at CERN video

When Google asked what we’d do if we had Glass, it was no doubt hoping we’d produce some world-changing ideas. We now know at least a few exist, courtesy of physics teacher Andrew Vanden Heuvel. He’s long been hoping to use the wearable tech for remote teaching and one-on-one sessions, and the Glass Explorer program has given him the chance to do just that. His first stop? None other than CERN. Courtesy of a trip for Google’s new Explorer Story video series, Vanden Heuvel is the first person to teach a science course while inside the Large Hadron Collider tunnel, streaming his perspective to students thousands of miles away. While we don’t know if other Explorer Stories will be quite as inspiring, we’ll admit to being slightly jealous — where was Glass when we were kids?

[Thanks, Peter]

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Source: AGL Initiatives

Silk: Nature’s Homespun Supermaterial

Most of your exposure to silk probably comes in the form of uncomfortably sensual linens or cobwebs in a dusty old closet. In reality, though, silk is an incredible and overlooked material. While it may have roots in the ancient past, it could also form the building blocks of the future. More »

The Center of the Earth Is 1,000°C Hotter Than We Thought

A new series of measurements have revealed that the Earth’s core is actually 1,000°C hotter than we previously thought—meaning the center of our planet is actually as hot as the surface of the Sun. More »

The Science of Jetpacks

If there’s one universal truth, it’s that everybody wants to fly around using a jetpack. But how the hell do they work? This video should help explain. Bear with the physics, because the video as a whole makes for some really interesting watching. [YouTube] More »

How to Make a Better Sand Castle That Can Hold the Weight of a Human

Here’s a relatively useless yet undoubtedly impressive trick you can pull the next time you go to the beach: make a sand castle that’s so unbelievably sturdy that it can hold up an entire person. Seriously. What’s it take? Unfortunately, a wee bit more than just wet sand. More »

Particle Accelerators 101: If Only Every College Course Was Animated

Are you still scratching your head over what a particle accelerator like the Large Hadron Collider actually does? Don’t feel bad, the LHC is the most complicated piece of scientific equipment mankind has ever built. And unless you’re a physicist, you’ll probably never understand its intricacies. But if you’re curious, take a few minutes to watch this animated Particle Accelerator 101 by Don Lincoln. You won’t be applying for a job at CERN afterwards, but you should at least get the gist of what’s going on at the LHC. [YouTube via Geekosystem] More »

Graphene’s Achilles Heel

Graphene is touted as being the supermaterial to beat all supermaterials—but not so fast! Researchers have discovered a weakness that occurs in many sheets of graphene that renders it half as strong as we thought. More »