Wind Speed Indicator

Wind speed indicator with wind chill chart
Must get real cold at some weather stations.

This particular wind speed indicator hasn’t been functional in ages, but at some point it was probably useful in determining whether or not to go outside for telescope observations. Wind is of concern in astronomy, as it can produce poor seeing and – when really strong – cause telescopes to shake. But wind chill is the more immediate concern. Cold nights can be good for observing, with clear skies and good seeing, but rough on fingers and toes.

All of that standing still, lack of warming sunshine, etc. doesn’t do a lot to counter a cold night. Maybe think ahead and bring along a hot beverage?

An awful lot of that chart is devoted to conditions when no one should be outside at all. One line of thought considers that a chart with all of your category indicators bunched up on the left isn’t the ideal for communicating information visually. Another notes that an endless tundra of negative numbers tells you enough without needing the particulars.

News Release: Buddy System

“Where’s his buddy? They all have a buddy!”

We’re not arguing here: contingency plans in a potentially dangerous situation are essential. One can reasonably assume that any and all tasks undertaken by astronauts while naut-ing in the astro are, if not inherently dangerous, at least dangerous-adjacent. And, as that time Tom Hanks almost died in space taught us, you can’t call 911 from space and expect them to do anything about it.

In case you were curious: the first 911 call was in Haleyville, Alabama in February, 1968. The Apollo 13 mission went sideways in April, 1970. Presumably any connection between the two would have to have been routed through CAPCOM anyway.

News Release: Satellites

NASA press release of satellites in orbit
It’s a space race score sheet!

April 14th, 1961: NASA publishes a list of satellites and space probes orbiting the Earth, Moon, and Sun, and it all fits on a single, ordinary, typed sheet of letter-sized paper. Twenty-six in all.

Just take a moment to marvel at that.

Now, of course, we (as in humans, not the physics shop) are still sending scads of objects into space, and NASA maintains the ARES Orbital Debris Program to keep track of all the crap up there.

Remember: wishing upon the burning reentry of space debris is just as good as on the remnants of comet dust!

News Release: Space Toilet

Title: Bathroom Commode Design for Space Shuttle Passengers
Cannot overstate the importance of this project.

In cleaning out decades of old papers, attempting to determine what’s worth saving, one occasionally stumbles across the in-betweens: those bits worth remarking upon, but not worth keeping.

For those who’ve kept up on reading Mary Roach’s books, the importance and extreme engineering challenges of making a good space toilet are immense. Suffice to say, the problem was far from solved in 1972.

Fire Pit

Embers in process.

S’mores! Pretty much everyone likes s’mores, and they’re a great excuse to get outside and be social. And to make a cozy fire on an October evening.

Of course, if you also attempt to do this with physicists, the discussion is bound to turn to fluid turbulence and vortices and all of that…

In case you were wondering: there is a version of this which involves watching the fluid flow with lasers, because of course they have another way to play with lasers…

Meteorites

Meteorite.
Dense.

In our cabinet of meteorites – because everyone has one of those in an odd corner, right? – we have a number of surprisingly-dense space rocks. You can’t really hurt them, considering they’ve already been dropped far harder than any puny human can manage, so occasionally we get to pass them around.

Here we have the Plainview meteorite, from Hale County, Texas. Discovered in 1917, the original find weighed over 400 kg (a lot!), and our little chunk is a mere 184 g. Isn’t it adorable?

Constellations

Triangulum on a celestial globe.
Triangulum, the Triangle.

For the most part, deciding on constellations is hard. A few really stand out (Orion, Cassiopeia) as do a number of bold asterisms (the Big Dipper in Ursa Major, the Teapot in Sagittarius). The rest of the sky, where there are stars but no super-obvious pattern stands out? Oof.

Picking all 88 sounds like a beastly challenge.

Still… sometimes it seems like someone just starting phoning it in in the end.

Triangulum and Norma on a celestial globe.
Norma, the Square, and a second Triangulum.

Declaring Norma to be a carpenter’s square isn’t helping your case.

Beats

wobblewobblewobble

In acoustics, there’s a phenomenon known as beats, which is when two similar tones generate an interference pattern that sounds like a pulsing beat. It happens with waves of all kinds, waves being moving energy and all that, but sometimes it’s easier to really get the sensation when you hear it. Graphing out the sinusoids and showing the constructive and destructive interference helps explain it. Hearing that wubwubwubwubwub cements it.

We have what looks, at first glance, like a glockenspiel, with its metal bars all in a row. Tap one with the mallet, and it sounds almost the same as the one next to it. Almost. Tap two at once, and you get the beats.

At one end, it’s 440 Hz. Then 439, 438, 437, 436, and 435 Hz. Not only can you hear the beats, but you can very clearly hear the change in beat frequency as you combine tones in different combinations. It’s very cool.

Also quite unnerving after a while. woobwoobwoobwoobwoob