Science Behind Things

Boiling Water Using Nano-technology

A pot of water coated with extremely small copper rods (measuring 450 by 40 – 50 nanometers around) at oblique angles might help speed up the process of boiling water by creating more air-trapping pockets where liquid water could be transformed into a gas.  Boiling water faster means two things: (1) I get to enjoy my hot chocolate faster, and (2) I use less energy to boil the water.  That saves money and is cool.

Very cool.

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Source: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=pot-boiler-a-new-faster-way-to-heat-water&no_cj_c=1

World’s Most Powerful Laser in Texas

Todd Ditmire, a physicist at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, fired the world’s most powerful laser on Monday, March 31, in the morning. One petawatt (“peta” coming after the sequence mega, giga, tera, and meaning quadrillionth or 10¹⁵ power) is a lot of power. It is powerful enough to supply all the needs of the world’s 6.66 billion people for 400 trillionths of a second. But that incredible (brighter than our sun’s surface), albeit brief, power output enables scientists to simulate amazing events such as brown dwarfs (essentially failed stars, not powerful enough to shine like a “real” star, with incredible temperatures and pressures), mini-supernovas, “tabletop” stars, and other exotic objects that can be presently studied only through powerful telescopes or simulated in supercomputers. The amazing universe will be able to be understood a little bit more, and God’s creativity will be seen a little bit more clearly. Praise God for His wondrous creation.

Source: http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/most-powerful-laser-world-fires-15811.html