Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson was in North Carolina this past week to give a few lectures at the North Carolina Science Festival. He’s a very well spoken astrophysicist who is known for his promotion of science and engineering. Tyson shared that he knew that he wanted to be an astrophysicist at the age of 9 when he first saw the stars at the Hayden Planetarium in New York where he is now the director. When a little girl from the audience asked him what the best part about being an astrophysicist was, his replied, “Everyday I wake up I know there’s something about the universe that I don’t know yet.” During one of his lectures he also said, “The problem is most education tells you what to think rather than how to think it. Science is a method of inquiry. It’s the capacity to judge. That’s the scientifically literate mind.”

I’ve always found Dr. Tyson’s speeches inspirational for my personal engineering ventures. Some of my projects, including this blog and the electric RX-8, may seem like pipe dreams to some people, but I am not ashamed of that. Much of the work will be things that I will be doing for the first time. That means that I’m not guaranteed a 100% chance of success, but that’s point. Not following an already set path means there’s a sense of exploring and adventure. We live very safe lives in this modern age. Our survival and day to day living is pretty much guaranteed. That means our last frontier is here in science and engineering. I started this project not knowing how I was going to do it, just that I could and should. I hope listening to one of Dr. Tyson’s speeches will spark that sense of adventure in you as well.

 

This high resolution video of the space shuttle launch was just posted recently. This is what can happen when people are not afraid to dream and to create.

Having fun with hardcore science in outer space is a great reason to stay in school, kids. In this video, astronauts on the International Space Station play with liquid anti-bubbles (the blobs of water that float around in zero gravity) by injecting air bubbles into them. Then things get even crazier when they figure out how to use the water injector to spin the anti-bubbles. Finally they top it off by shooting lasers through it because hey, why not? They’re in space.

By the way, the answer to the question at the end is the rotation of the sphere adds a centrifugal force to the mass of water in the anti-bubble. This pushes the denser water towards the outside of the bubble which also gathers the lighter air bubbles in the center. The same type of thing happens when your washer goes through a spin cycle and all the clothes end up squished to the outside of the drum.

**UPDATE** My friend thinks the answer to the challenge question has to do with the velocity and surface tension of the water as it spins. I still think centrifugal forces separates the water and air bubbles because of the difference in their masses. What do YOU think. Add your comments below!

**UPDATE 2** I used the wrong term to describe the force acting on the water due to the rotation of the anti-bubble. It is Centripetal force, not Centrifugal force.

Source: IO9