2006-10-30

Mathematics: All about not blowing glass and water all over the laboratory

Just for fun, here's the scientific paper where Alejandro Jenkins from the California Institute of Technology solved Richard Feynman's "reverse sprinkler" problem. It's an ancient article from scientific standards (2003), but still contains one of the great gems:

All physicists will probably know the frustration of being confronted by an elementary question to which they cannot give a ready answer in spite of all the time dedicated to the study of the subject, often at a much higher level of sophistication than what the problem at hand would seem to require.
It's not just physicists who have to deal with this problem, but its probably only physicists who are aware enough to keep their eyes open for it.

(h/t goes to EverydayScientist)

Bonus EverydayScientist discovery: A reenactment of the Mark Foley instant messages. (To be fair, I wouldn't want some of my more bizarre instant message conversations acted out by live people either)