Re: PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE -- Number 878 December 2, 2008 www.aip.org/pnu

On Dec 2, 6:44 pm, Sam Wormley <sworml...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
INSIDE SCIENCE RESEARCH---PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Research News
Number 878   December 2, 2008      www.aip.org/pnu

LEADER OF THE PACK.  A new study shows why it's sometimes better to
stay out front.

Lance Armstrong, the cyclist who won the Tour de France six times,
often came in first because he spent so much time in second. That
is, he would regularly pedal right behind a teammate whose job was
to obligingly break up the stream of oncoming air, making it easier
for Armstrong to save his own energy for a sprint later on.  Stock
cars also often maneuver to be in the draft of the car in front,
thus reducing drag.  A new study, however, suggests that this
strategy of staying right behind a leader can backfire.
Bikes and stock cars are rigid bodies which cast a definite wind
shadow. But if the object out front is a flapping body, such as a
wiggling fish, a waving flag, or a bird beating its wings, then the
disturbed flow set up by the flapping can increase, rather than
decrease, aerodynamic drag for the follower.  Not only does the
follower experience more drag---forcing him to expend more energy go
keep up---but the leader feels less drag.

This hypothesis is difficult to test on living animals such as birds
or fish so two scientists performed an experiment with tiny waving
flags.  Leif Ristroph of Cornell University and Jun Zhang at New
York University used two flags.  Instead of a stream of air they
used a flowing soap film that allowed  clear images to be taken of
the complex patterns set up when the fluid comes past the flags.

The result was surprising.  Not only was the drag for the following
flag made worse by the swirling fluid, but the measured drag felt by
the leader was reduced, by as much as 50 percent, below the drag it
feels when it is by itself.  This is because the commotion set up by
the following flag can mitigate the drag felt by the leader.

Jhang says that it's too early to confirm that for some animals-such
as migrating birds and schools of fish-being the leader of the pack
is better because it reduces the energy needed to counteract drag.
So far the experiment has been carried out with two flags and with
six flags, and Jhang and his colleague would like to study their
ideas with real animals.  He believes that his results might have
industrial applications, where reducing energy input is almost
always a good thing.  P.F. Schewe
( Physical Review Letters, 7 November 2008)

WHAT PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT PHYSICS.  Nuclear and
biological terrorism, energy, and climate are among the top topics.

Even scientists can hardly keep up with the influx of new  research
discoveries. So how can the president of the United States, with a
blizzard of issues to deal with daily, expect to stay informed on
scientific and technological developments that have an impact on
society?  Richard A. Muller, a professor at the University of
California at Berkeley, addresses this problem in his new book,
"Physics for Future Presidents."  The book is divided into five
large topic areas which essentially define the hottest issues of
today: terrorism, energy, nukes, space, and global warming.   Muller
believes that anyone who strives to be a world leader needs to
possess a core of knowledge in these areas.

Muller's book is based on a course he's been teaching at Berkeley
for years, so he's had plenty of time to think about what the world
leader needs to know---at least that part of knowledge pertaining to
the material world.  Voted the best course on campus, Muller's
class, "Physics for Future Presidents" uses no equations or detailed
mathematical description.  Instead it imparts a commonsense, but
accurate, appreciation of certain technological hazards and
opportunities.

For example, Muller believes the president should know about
radiation levels (it's the accumulative dose that is medically
important), about the difference between nuclear fission and fusion
explosions (the latter are much more powerful), about the relative
energy content of various substances (gasoline, and even cookies,
have more energy per weight than TNT), and about the relative cost
of electricity obtained from batteries used in cell phones,
computers, and automobiles.  The president must be able to
intelligently absorb information about the impact of human
technology on climate, and to know that no single unexpectedly hot
or cold day denotes a significant indicator of things to come.

The president can't afford to learn about such things as the danger
from radiation at the last minute, argues Muller, because in certain
circumstances, every second counts.  Consider, for example, the
detonation of a dirty bomb, in which an ordinary (non-nuclear)
explosion spreads radioactive materials.  Fatalities, property
damage, and even residual radiation, would likely be very small.
"The biggest danger from a radiological weapon is the misplaced
panic and overreaction that it would cause. A dirty bomb is not
really a weapon of mass destruction, but it is potentially a weapon
of mass disruption," Muller says.   Allocating resources during a
crisis---military, medical, emergency, and engineering---requires
quick and shrewd thinking.
Muller views physics as the "liberal arts of high technology,"
insofar as physicists are trained to solve problems in a broad
category of topics, many of them relating to the very topics---such
as energy and nuclear issues---that form the backdrop to numerous
national-security concerns.  This is probably why so many
presidential science advisors have been physicists.

Science advisors  have been losing the clout they once had, Muller
believes, because they---and scientists in general---are perceived
as a special-interest group, with their goal being greater federal
support for science.  A good presidential science advisor, Muller
argues ironically, should not do all that much advising.  Instead
she or he should act as an early alert system informing or educating
(but not lobbying) the president on science and technology issues
and their possible impact.

Muller has extensive experience on rendering government-requested
science advice.  For many years he was a member of the "Jasons," an
organization of leading scientists who meet for a month or more each
summer to study specific subjects---most of them relating to
national security---of interest to the Pentagon or other federal
agencies.  This work, Muller says, taught him the value of asking
lots of dumb questions and of not necessarily trusting all the
things he was told by experts.

Test your own presidential science knowledge.  Nature magazine
featured a set of questions from Muller's class on its website:www.nature..com/news/specials/climatepolitics/index.html

***********
PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE is a digest of physics news items arising
from physics meetings, physics journals, newspapers and
magazines, and other news sources.  It is provided free of charge
as a way of broadly disseminating information about physics and
physicists. For that reason, you are free to post it, if you like,
where others can read it, providing only that you credit AIP.
Physics News Update appears approximately once a week.

-------------
-please note what they said
about physics advance in future
it will not necessarily be
leaded by mathematics

and that is what i always say:
'mathematics cannot be the leader of physics '!!!

for example:
in a similar way that you cant describe
your street of a DNA structure
by a mathematical formula
the same way
you cant describe the gepmetric structure
of a heavy nuc
by mathematical formulas
so next time farter Wormley
while you see the abstract of my model
dont you old farter dare to call it
PLONK!!
got it old moron croock ??
2
i suggest Sam Wormley to be the president s scientific adviser !!
(because of his wide deap understandings about physics
th e basics of physics
and his contribution to the advance of science
(like virtual particles without mass
etc etc )

ATB
Y.Porat
-----------------------------------
.

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