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Stardate Friday 8 September 2006 Issue 199

We’re all at sixes and sevens here at Planet Science. We’ve gone maths mad! What it all adds up to is a complete division between mathematicians and non-mathematicians. There are 10 sorts of people who know about binary code. Those who understand it and those who don’t.

The line-up this week:

  1. Mind-blowing Maths – mega-distance molecules
  2. Activity of the Week: Bubble painting
  3. Mouses at the Ready for Prime Climb Pencils and a Sudoku game
  4. Noticeboard: FYI
  5. Recommended websites of the week
  6. Last week’s joke – an explanation
  7. The Winners’ Enclosure
  8. Joke of the Week

1. Mind-blowing Maths
Brace yourself for a couple of new Maths series (the other one will start next week). Mind-blowing Maths explains mind-blowing science facts through the medium of calculation. Ben Craven, one of two resident math-magicians, will tell you something that will scramble your synapses and then before your very eyes, will prove it. Mathematically speaking.

Ben has been fascinated with science for as long as he can remember. He loves doing calculations to help him look at things in informative ways. And that should help us too!

This week, (ta da!) Mega-distance molecules...

Imagine the air in a small soap bubble, about the size of the tip of your little finger. All those little molecules dashing about bumping into each other.

Watch the bubble for one second. Each molecule does a crazy zig-zag journey, colliding with other molecules and bouncing off the sides of the bubble. Suppose that you could measure the length of each of these journeys, and add them up. What do you think they would come to? 

What is the total distance travelled by the air molecules inside a small bubble in one second?
A hundred metres? A hundred kilometres? A thousand kilometres?

The actual answer is...one million light-years!
You don’t believe me? Read on...

To work out the total distance, we need to multiply the average speed of the air molecules by the number of molecules inside the bubble.

Physics textbooks tell us that the average speed is roughly 500 metres per second.

To work out how many molecules are in the bubble, start with the fact that one mole of a perfect gas occupies 22,400 cubic centimetres at everyday temperature and pressure.

Our bubble contains about one cubic centimetre of air, so there are 1/22,400 moles of gas in there.

Now one mole of anything contains 6 ´ 1023 molecules (Avogadro’s number). 

So the number of molecules in the bubble is 6 ´ 1023 divided by 22,400, which comes to about 2.5 ´ 1019 molecules.

And if each molecule travels 500 metres in one second, the total distance travelled is about 1022 metres.

As a light year is about 1016 metres, this means that the total distance travelled in one second by the molecules in the bubble is 106 (a million) light years.

What this result brings home is not the speed of the molecules – Concorde flew faster – but just how many of the little blighters there really are.

Thanks Ben! We’ll never look at a humble soap bubble in the same way again.
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2. Activity of the Week:

Did someone mention bubbles? Everyone loves bubbles!

Bubble painting

Keeping the activity simple this week, giving the brain a rest between all the maths.

You will need:

  • Paper
  • Containers with wide tops (e.g. plastic cups, yoghurt pots)
  • Powder or liquid paint
  • Washing-up liquid
  • Straws

What to do:

  1. Put a squirt of paint and a squirt of washing-up liquid into one of the containers.
  2. Add a little water and mix well until the mixture is runny enough to blow bubbles with. 
  3. Using the straw, blow into the mixture (Okay Mr Bluechops - who sucked instead of blowing?) until the container is so full of bubbles that they rise above the top rim.
  4. Quickly take a piece of paper and lightly touch it onto the bubbles. As they touch the paper, the bubbles will burst. You will be left with a lovely pattern of circles. Leave to dry then build up layers of colour.

What’s going on?

Surface tension of water makes it impossible to stretch out to create a thin film or bubble on its own. There is a strong attraction between water molecules, preventing them from being stretched thinly enough to produce a bubble. However by adding soap to water, the soap reduces the surface tension and allows bubbles to form.

A soap film always pulls in as tightly as it can, just like a stretched balloon. A soap film makes the smallest possible surface area for the volume it contains. Most bubbles are spheres because it is the shape that has the smallest surface area compared to its volume. 
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3. Mouses at the Ready

We’ve got a slightly different format to our giveaway this week. Magic Mathworks Travelling Circus has set you a challenge.

There is a series of interactivities investigating Eratosthenes' Sieve. (Sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings). However, as you will read, the tasks are designed to help interpret a physical object, the 'prime climb pencil'. And you can win one. In fact if you are feeling very lucky you could win 37 of them! We have five boxes of 37, packed in a 'prime climb' box of similar, hexagonal shape, (37 being the 4th centred hexagon number). Intrigued? You ought to be.

To get into the draw, send an email with your name and address, and the words PRIME CLIMB in the subject line, to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk.

The draw will take place at 5pm on Wednesday 13th September.

But if you’d like something a bit meatier to get your teeth into then we have a competition for you. The prize is a handheld Sudoku touch screen game. This fiendishly addictive number puzzle game has taken the nation by storm. It’s based around a 9 x 9 grid, divided into smaller 3 x 3 sections. Some cells are pre- populated with the numbers 1 to 9. Your task is to fill the remaining empty cells, so that each row, column and region contains one instance of every number from 1 to 9. Carol Vorderman, eat your heart out.

All you have to do is 'Find the first 6 primes in arithmetical progression.'

To enter, send your answer in an email with your name and address, and the words PRIME CANDIDATE in the subject line, to planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk.

Closing date is 5pm on Wednesday 13th September.

So, are you all primed? G-g-g-g-g-g-go! And good luck!
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Noticeboard

 

There’s still time to get your entry in for the Planet Science Galapagos Day Quiz. (27 September in case you were wondering). You could win a cuddly Galapagos tortoise and a map of the islands. So don’t be a booby – have a go!
 

 

Dear Planet Science Newsletter readers, speaking of numbers, next week's newsletter will be very special as it’s our 200th edition. To celebrate, there'll be a 'Mouses' type offer for every section. Currently there are 16,867 subscribers to the Newsletter, and we'd like to reach 17,000 for the 200th issue, so if you know of anyone who gets the newsletter forwarded (or heavens! doesn't get the Newsletter at all) encourage them to sign up this week, and if they happen to be the 17,000th person they'll win a hand-warmer heart and a solar kit – because they'll make us feel warm and sunny – awwwww!
 

 

See an IMAX film for free!

Celebrate National Schools' Film Week by bringing your class to the Science Museum, London on Friday 20 October to watch either Deep Sea 3D or Forces of Nature 2D absolutely free of charge! Book quickly because places will go fast.
 

 

Don't miss the largest model of DNA in the world at Norwich Cathedral 2nd - 10th September. The model is hanging from the ceiling of the Nave, contains 300 base pairs and is over 13m long. To see what you are missing go to www.makeitmolecular.com
 

 

Calling all male and female UK based scientists, engineers and medics! Could you help out in a survey to understand and address the barriers to women’s progression in scientific careers? ASSET 2006, the third Athena Survey of Science Engineering and Technology runs for six weeks from 5 September to 20 October 2006 and will be launched at the BA Festival in Norwich.

A report on the headline findings from the survey will be published in Spring 2007. If you are a teacher don’t be put off by the list of occupations not including you, we checked and they really do want to hear from you.

The more responses the more data so if you’ve got a few minutes to spare... complete the survey.
 

 

Coming up on September 22nd is the deadline for this year’s Flipside Award.

The Award is for a young person, 16 or under, who has demonstrated talent in the area of science and technology - this could be through a school project, undertaking an experiment, starting a website or company, inventing a product, or anything else interesting. Last year’s winner ran an after-school IT support group for parents!

The winner will receive a top of the range laptop and two runners-up will both win a 30Gb Apple iPod.

It’s up to you to nominate such a promising individual so don’t be too late – get nominating!

To nominate please email your name, telephone number, who you would like to nominate for the award and why (in no more than 300 words), and your relationship to them, to flipside@flipside.org.uk

Click here for more info.

2006 forms part of the IET Innovation in Engineering Awards
 

5. Recommended Websites of the Week

Crochet Corner

For a very special eye-popping woolly maths treat this week, its crocheted hyperbolic models from the Institute For Figuring. Big thanks to NESTA's own Yvette Eady for spotting this one. The Institute is devoted to, well, this is how they put it:
"The Institute For Figuring is an educational organization (they're American) dedicated to enhancing the public understanding of figures and figuring techniques. From the physics of snowflakes and the hyperbolic geometry of sea slugs, to the mathematics of paper folding and graphical models of the human mind, the Institute takes as its purview a complex ecology of figuring."

While you're there check out the knitted coral reef – whoa!

DYNAMO SCIENCE

Drop into the den for some dynamizing Numeracy games, including Science Splat and Dynamake & Do. Have fun with words and numbers!

Murder by Numbers

Don’t miss this brilliant maths site Murderous Maths Tricks and Games with tricks such as Let Riverboat Lil read your mind and the aptly named Pongo McWhiffy’s Pants Race, you’ll be hooked for hours.

And if you have any burning maths questions (or are just plain nosey and want to see what other folks have asked) try the Research Lab but don’t expect them to give you the answers to your homework. Nice try!

NRICH

Looking for maths resources and inspiration? Look no further! NRICH has everything you need. How about trying to solve the mystery of the Magic Potting Sheds? The mind boggles. NRICH is part of the Millennium Mathematics project at the University of Cambridge which won the Queen’s Anniversary Prize 2006.
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6. Last week’s joke

Now Planet Science readers are a discerning bunch and nothing much gets past them. A query was made over last week’s joke and since this week’s newsletter has a maths flavour let’s run that one again shall we...

A frontiersman went into an Indian village to purchase a wife.
The chief showed him three young women. The first was seated on a deer skin and could be purchased for the sum of five ponies. The second was seated on a buffalo skin and could also be purchased for five ponies. The third young woman was seated on a hippopotamus skin and could be purchased for ten ponies.
"Why does this one cost so much more?" asked the man.
"You know," replied chief Pythagoras, "the squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides."

The query is that the maths doesn’t add up. 5x5 plus 5x5 equals 50 whereas 10x10 equals 100. Therefore not equal at all. Stay with us on this – it gets interesting. As our old mate Pythagoras states: the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides. So Planet Science Newsletter reader you are right to point this out. However we are actually talking SQUAWS here. Two squaws worth five ponies each i.e. a sum of ten ponies and one squaw worth ten ponies. Ten equals ten. Unless you are a loan shark in which case ten equals thirty thousand. So the upshot is – it’s all in the wording. Squaw A = Squaw B + Squaw C.  But at the end of the day it’s a very good joke wouldn’t you agree? Apologies for putting it in again to the reader who thought it was degrading to women and invoked stereotypes.  Ever wish you’d never started something...? It was a bad sine, the angle was all wrong.
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7. The Winners’ Enclosure

There’s a worm at the bottom of the garden – and his name is Lumbricus terrestris. There’s us thinking it was Wiggly Woo. You live and learn eh? Remember last week when we were giving away two Worm Worlds? The lucky winners are Radhika Majithia of Leicester and Chrissie Waddington of Coventry.

Well done to you both! Of course the downside to this means you now have to find yourself some worms. Apparently tapping the ground with sticks to make it sound like it’s raining (try explaining that to the neighbours) or pouring water on the ground can be effective. Click here for more Earthworm activities.

8. Joke of the Week

NEW YORK- A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule and a calculator. The man has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.
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We can’t let the newsletter go without a mention of Steve Irwin who died last week in a freak stingray accident. Steve grew up at his parents' reptile park. He became fascinated with animals after he was given a python as a present on his sixth birthday. The animal-lover always said he was very dedicated to saving endangered species and set up the Steve Irwin Conservation Foundation to help do this. Love him or hate him, it can’t be denied that he did much to enthuse and inform others of the fabulous but deadly creatures of our planet. Such enthusiasm is in short supply and we are the poorer for his passing.

That’s all for this week but remember – if you’ve got anything to add then drop us a line: planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk.We’re open to contributions 24/7.

Have a great week.

If you would like to view the Planet Science Newsletter Archive click: http://www.planet-science.com/about_sy/news/ps_index.html You can read back issues of Wired-Up for younger teens here: http://www.planet-science.com/wired/wiredNL/archive/ Or you can read back issues of Hay-Wire for Under 10s: http://www.planet-science.com/wired/haywired/archive/

PS if you would like to unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time, just reply to this email with the word 'UNSUBSCRIBE' in the title.

That’s all for this week but remember – if you’ve got anything to add then drop us a line: planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk. We’re open to contributions 24/7.

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