Newton STEM Training

01/02/2021

Mapping The Ocean Bottom And Beyond

Sound can be used to map the depth of the ocean bottom. A transducer is mounted on the bottom of a ship. 🛳 Every time the transducer emits a sound, the sound travels to the ocean bottom, bounces off the bottom, and then returns to the transducer. The speed of sound in water is approximately 1500 m/s depending on the water temperature and salinity. So, we start with the simple formula of:


Speed = Change in distance / Change in time

1500 = 2 (Depth) / Change in time

Depth = 750 (Change in time)


So, the time to travel to the bottom and back tells you the depth of the ocean, at any given location, plus you must add in the distance from the transducer to the waterline of the ship. And this simple technology has been used to make detailed maps of all of the world’s oceans.

01/02/2021

The sedimentary layers beneath the ocean bottom can also be mapped, by using an air gun to make a much larger sound, and a towed array of hydrophones to map the layers at different depths, to create a seismograph. If a pocket of oil and gas exists on the seismograph, there will be a flat line between the heavier oil and the lighter gas. This is how oil and gas is frequently found.

01/01/2021

01/01/2021

What is Symbiosis?

Symbiosis (from the Greek words for “living together”) is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different species, whereby each of the species benefit from the other.


In a marine symbiosis, the clownfish feeds on small invertebrates that otherwise have potential to harm the sea anemone, and the f***l matter from the clownfish provides nutrients to the sea anemone. The clownfish is protected from predators by the anemone's stinging cells, to which the clownfish is immune. The clownfish emits a high pitched sound that deters butterfly fish, which would otherwise eat the anemone, making the relationship mutualistic.


In a land-based symbiosis, a bumblebee will enter an orchid to extract nectar. While the bee 🐝 is entering the orchid the pollinia of the orchid deposit pollen on the back of the bee, which get picked up by other orchids in a cross-pollination process. While the orchids feed the bees, the bees help the orchids procreate.

12/29/2020

The Geology of Diamonds:

When a weak area exists in the crust of the Earth , molten lava will break through that area and create a volcano. The lava is high in carbon, and if the temperature and pressure are within a certain range, diamonds will form. The diamonds can be either microdiamonds or gem quality diamonds, depending on the temperature and pressure of the cooling lava.

Once the lava has cooled, it is called a kimberlite pipe. During a previous Ice Age, the top of any kimberlite pipe would have been crushed and pulverized and spread over a large area. The best way to find a kimberlite pipe is to take soil samples, measure the amount of carbon in them, and trace the samples back to the pipe. This is how Charles Fipke found the first gem quality diamonds in Canada.

Once the pipe is found, the kimberlite ore is removed, crushed, and put onto a moving conveyor belt, where the ore is X-rayed. When you X-ray a diamond, it glows blue for a few seconds. An optical computerized robot then picks the glowing blue diamonds out of the ore.

12/28/2020

This will Get Your Goat:

Mathematicians have long pondered a deceptively easy puzzle about the reach of a goat tied to a fence. Until now, they’ve only found approximate answers.

12/28/2020

The Pythagorean Theorem:

The Ancient Greek Mathematician, Pythagoras, said that in every triangle which contains one 90 degree angle, the area built on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the areas built on the other two sides (see first diagram).

How do we prove the Pythagorean Theorem?
We start with a smaller square, drawn within a larger square (see second diagram)

The area of the larger square is equal to the area of the smaller square, plus the areas of all four triangles.

(a+b)(a+b) = 4(0.5 ab) + c*c
a*a + 2ab + b*b = 2ab + c*c
a*a + b*b = c*c

12/25/2020

Rolling the dice 🎲 🎲 on Random Numbers.

Every computer is driven by a power source of alternating current at 60 cycles per second in North America, and 50 cycles per second in Europe. When a computer program requests a random number, the computer checks to see the current value of its own power supply, and then returns a value between 0 and 1 to the program.

For example, suppose that we want to write a computer program to roll a pair of dice. For each dice, we request a value between 0 and 1, and then map that value to a number between 1 and 6, as follows:

Case:
0 to 1/6 -> 1
1/6 to 2/6 -> 2
2/6 to 3/6 -> 3
3/6 to 4/6 -> 4
4/6 to 5/6 -> 5
5/6 to 1 -> 6

12/24/2020

What is Resonance?

Resonance is a natural phenomenon whereby the total energy in a physical system can be increased by impinging wave energy at a particular frequency; this frequency is called the Resonant Frequency.

For example, suppose that you are sitting in a bathtub full of water. 🛀 And suppose that you move your hands forward and backwards very slowly. In this case you create some waves, but nothing exciting happens. Now suppose that you move your hands forwards and backwards very quickly. In this case you create a larger number of waves, but again, nothing exciting happens. But if you move your hands forward and backwards at just the right frequency, you will create a wave which gets larger and larger until it travels over the top of the bathtub, and onto the floor. This frequency would be the Resonant Frequency of the bathtub.

12/24/2020

Why is the sky blue?

Sunlight is made up of a full spectrum of colours from red to violet, plus invisible wavelengths of infrared and ultraviolet. By coincidence, air molecules resonate at the same frequency as the frequency of blue light. When blue light reaches the Earth’s atmosphere, it strikes nitrogen and oxygen molecules, and causes them to resonate, and shake very fast. The shaking molecules scatter the blue light in all directions, which makes the sky appear to be blue. It is a blue fireworks display which lasts all day.

12/23/2020

Why does the Bay of Fundy have the highest tides in the World?

Every body of water has a natural Resonant Frequency. If waves are created at that frequency, the waves will increase in amplitude. The Resonant Frequency for the Bay of Fundy just happens to be the same as the Tidal Frequency, produced by the Gravitational Forces of the Sun and Moon. Therefore, the Tidal Waves in the Bay of Fundy get larger and larger, making the Bay have the highest tides in the World.

12/23/2020

How does a microwave oven work?

When you activate a microwave oven, the antenna in the oven emits electromagnetic waves, which have the same frequency as the Resonant Frequency of water molecules. The impinging waves cause the water molecules to shake very fast. The friction of the water molecules shaking against each other, causes the water to get hot. That’s what a microwave oven does; it heats water.