professor walter lewin demos physics 101

[Update: Pakistan's HEC is now mirroring MIT OCW here]


If you have ever wondered if the period of a pendulum is independent of the mass hanging from it, see this video available on Physics MIT's OCW page

See the last 5 minutes of the Lecture 11 video as professor walter lewin demonstrates a basic principle of physics

christmas lights

This is amazing....

Carson Williams, 40, spent nearly two months hooking up 25,000 lights, programing them to flash to Christmas music. Hundreds of cars drove by his house north of Cincinnati. The music was broadcast through a low FM transmitter, so that passers-by could pick it up on their car radios and the music wouldn't be played through the neighborhood.

Now the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Gardens is courting Williams to set up a Christmas display later this year.

"We have a long history of bringing in new entertainment. His would rank right up there as one of the best shows," zoo spokesman Chad Yelton said.

link to news

time for some satire

please note that both these websites have some off-color humor, do not go there if don't like such humor

the onion and satirewire are two of the best satire sites on the net - the latter is disontinued though and only the archives of the former are funny anymore now though but I found a couple of "news" too funny to pass up

ESPN Courts Female Viewers With World's Emotionally Strongest Man Competition

"The hour-long weekly show, which will run opposite ABC's Monday Night Football, features an international cast of powerfully caring, emotionally resilient, deeply sensitive men pushing themselves and each other...."

"Other strong overall performances were turned in by Martin "There, There" Richards, a graphic designer who remembered to make his wife's beloved tapioca pudding on the anniversary—not of their marriage—but of their first date; Garth "The Embrace" Josephsen, who maintained some form of reassuring but undemanding physical contact with his fiancée for nine consecutive hours...."

(ow, ow, ow, even reading this stuff makes my head and stomach hurt)

TORMENTED BY NEW U.N. CLASSMATES, SWITZERLAND ALREADY WANTS TO GO HOME

("The Swiss voted Sunday to join the United Nations, moving their country warily but decisively closer to the international community after centuries of neutrality and independence." — L.A. Times, March 4, 2002)

"According to U.N. school nurse Martha Kelly, the Swiss ambassador to the U.N. has visited her office no less than three times in the past 24 hours, twice complaining of a stomach ache, and once sporting a pair of black eyes."

"This isn't a community of nations, it's a zoo," said the Swiss ambassador after a voting bloc of central African nations ran his boxer shorts up a flagpole

"I was talking with Kamalesh Sharma, (India's ambassador to the U.N.), whom I had met on the train," Nordstrom wrote, "when (Chinese Ambassador) Wang comes swaggering up and sneers, 'Hey Switzerland, you're getting off to a bad start, making friends with losers. Maybe I should teach you a lesson.'"

"According to witnesses, moments later Nordmann was punched in the left eye by the Pakistani ambassador, who was upset that the Swiss was talking to an Indian. Nordmann then reportedly asked the Indian ambassador to punch him in the other eye, so as not to appear to be playing favorites."

For some more gems, see the archives of the onion & satirewire

p.s. Snakistan sounds suspiciously like another country I am familiar with....