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Ask the Van

Ask the Van is the public Q&A service of the Department of Physics at the University of Illinois (where I went to grad school). Anyone can submit a question, and physics professors and student volunteers answer as many as possible.

Questions I answered

  • 11/11/16: Why do metals feel hot or cold to the touch?
  • 10/29/16: Seeing reflected and emitted light
  • 10/29/16: Forward velocity of a parachuter
  • 10/29/16: Do planes have to correct for the coriolis effect?
  • 9/29/16: Launching a rocket to the sun
  • 9/16/16: How do we define communication in entanglement?
  • 9/16/16: Why do dim objects appear brighter out of the corner of your eye?
  • 9/16/16: Waves on a guitar string caught on camera
  • 8/23/16: Crepuscular rays are parallel
  • 8/15/16: The optics of sunlight
  • 8/10/16: Volume of sugar dissolved in water
  • 8/2/16: Why it feels like dowsing works
  • 5/27/16: Measuring the concentration of sugar with polarized light
  • 3/27/16: Does looking change the outcome?
  • 3/27/16: Why do we tell people to do the experiment?
  • 3/1/16: Why are the moon and the sun the same size in the sky?
  • 3/1/16: Net forces and Newton
  • 2/27/16: Is there a most effective force?
  • 2/27/16: Why do cooked potatoes turn dark?
  • 2/17/16: The difference between a mirror and a photograph
  • 2/17/16: Why does total internal reflection happen?
  • 12/14/15: Why would high RPMs be uncomfortable in artificial gravity?
  • 11/6/15: What happens when entangled photons get redshifted?
  • 11/6/15: Could a fighter jet tow a human?
  • 8/18/15: Questions about relativity
  • 8/10/15: When do you feel weightless in space?
  • 7/29/15: Can a car accelerate to 150 mph in a city block?
  • 7/16/15: Building an underwater rover
  • 6/20/15: Why do electrons have spin?
  • 6/18/15: Why is the sky blue, but the sun and moon aren't?
  • 6/18/15: Why is a proton heavier than three quarks?
  • 5/16/01: How do we know what will happen to the sun?
  • 4/6/15: E = mc^2 and the energy of light
  • 2/20/15: Slowing down (and speeding up?) a beam of light
  • 1/26/15: Making a vacuum chamber
  • 1/21/15: Are sunspots really black?
  • 1/21/15: Thin and thick wires
  • 1/9/15: How to build a telescope
  • 12/19/14: Does a black hole accelerate light?
  • 12/18/14: So hot you can't see it?
  • 11/29/14: Why do we see stars as points?
  • 11/24/14: Weight of materials on a rocket
  • 11/23/14: Where is the light that left Earth 70 years ago?
  • 11/3/14: Freezing a can of whipped cream
  • 10/30/14: Seeing single photons
  • 10/28/14: Cooling a computer in a vacuum
  • 10/9/14: Cracks in frozen pies
  • 10/9/14: Heating and cooling
  • 9/25/14: Kinetic energy equal to rest mass energy
  • 9/17/14: Two shadows from a nightlight
  • 9/11/14: Would a matchbox full of nuclei weigh more than the Earth?
  • 9/11/14: Can you only see reflected light?
  • 9/8/14: Isotopes in nuclear fusion
  • 9/3/14: How could you change your direction in space?
  • 8/30/14: Why does matter spiral into a black hole?
  • 8/21/14: Fact-checking Wikipedia
  • 9/5/14: Feeling current through the human body