Serendipita

Liegerad

Today I got to try a recument bike. It took a few tries until I was able to balance, but once I got going it was easier than I had imagined. I rode it for about half an hour in the fields (paved roads without car traffic) and was quite confident on it after that. I even managed to take a u-turn on the road without falling off. Fortunately, it had above seat steering – I hear that getting used to under seat steering is much more difficult. It felt a bit strange at first because the wheel you’re steering with is below you instead of in front, and you don’t see the direction of the wheel while turning – it looks like the bike keeps going straight forward because the front of the bike always points in that direction. Looking ahead instead of at the bike itself is key here, I found out.

And of course I now want my own recumbent – I think the Grasshopper (auch auf deutsch) by HPVelotechnik is cool.

And for future reference, here are two Ask MetaFilter threads about recumbent bikes: one, two.

Yeah, I would like to keep it. (Photos taken by my lovely husband, of course.)

P.S.: I can already feel the muscles that I used while riding the recumbent – they’re different from the ones you use while riding an upright bike. In German we call this Muskelkater, literally muscle tomcat.

Don’t try this at home, kids!

André and I are moving in a couple of days. Our new flat is going to have a much nicer kitchen than the old one, and it will have more room, so we’re considering buying a microwave oven. I guess you can use it for cooking, but the child physics teacher in me also wants to do some experiments… here are a few links:

• unwise microwave oven experiments by William Beaty
• Fun with grapes – a case study. By Patrick Michaud.
• Physics inside a microwave oven (link to page in frameset), by Maarten Rutgers.
• Microwave experiments by Hans Hochwald.
• Funny things to do with your microwave oven by We-Man/Stefan.

I don’t remember if the experiment is even on one of the pages, but I want to start by showing the “hot spots” of the oven by placing a sheet of heat-sensitive paper (like fax paper) in the oven. I’m told it also works with a bunch of marshmallows – that’s probably more fun than fax paper.

Wow!

… or rather, Math that makes you go Wow, “a multi-disciplinary exploration of non-orientable surfaces”. It’s too late now, so I’ll have to read it tomorrow.

Link via MetaFilter.

Travel

Travelcoupons.com is a “source for lodging discounts across the eastern United States”. You can either print the coupons directly from the web site or order the coupon leaflets to be sent via mail.

Link via Ask MeFi.

Kultur

Ägypten kommt nach Bonn – oder jedenfalls Grabschätze aus dem Tal der Könige in die Kunst- und Austellungshalle Bonn, und zwar vom 4. November 2004 bis zum 1. Mai 2005. Dafür wird sich auch locker der Wegn von unserem neuen Zuhause zurück nach Bonn lohnen.

Danke für den Tipp, Iris!

Jede Menge Physik-Links

Ich habe gerade auf meiner Festplatte eine Sammlung von Physik-Links gefunden. Keine Ahnung, woher ich sie habe, aber im Weblog habe ich sie bisher offenbar noch nicht gepostet, nur einige vereinzelte Links konnte ich im Archiv finden. (Interessanterweise habe ich diese Sammlung bereits im Februar gefunden, mich um die HTML-Aufbereitung gekümmert und das ganze dann doch vergessen zu posten. Hier sind die Links also für alle, die nach vier Tagen Ferien schon Entzugserscheinungen haben.)

Physik-Infos für alle Neugierigen

Pro Physik nennt sich selbst die Findemaschine: Forschungsnachrichten, Tagungskalender, Stellenbörse…

Wissenschaftsfestival der DPG

Kworkquark – Teilchenphysik einfach erklärt.

Cern, die European Organisation for Nuclear Research in der Schweiz.

Rund um Albert Einstein: Einstein Archives Online, Albert Einstein im WWW

Jenseits von Bits und Bytes: Quantencomputer. “Diese Seite basiert im Großen und Ganzen auf meiner Facharbeit, die über das Thema Quantencomputer ging. Diese Einführung soll allerdings nicht wissenschaftlich sein, sondern so, daß sie jeder verstehen kann. Deshalb verwende ich auch keine Formeln. Teilweise ist der Stoff aber natürlich schon etwas theoretisch.”

Physik 2000 (IAP Uni Bonn), deutsche Fassung von Physics 2000 (University of Colorado, Boulder).

Usenet Physics FAQ

Schulphysik.de ist eine umfangreiche Linkliste – nicht nur für den Schulgebrauch.

Nobel Laureates in Physics, 1901 – present (maintained by SLAC library).

NASA’s Hubblesite.

European Southern Observatory, die europäische Südsternwarte in Chile.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (CalTech, NASA)

Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy

Wissenschaft im Dialog (gefördert vom BmBF)

Forschungseinrichtungen und -gesellschaften in Deutschland…

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Leibnitz-Gemeinschaft

… und in Europa:

European Physical Society, Physicsweb by the Institute of Physics, UK

I wanna be an astronaut when I grow up

Thirty-five years ago yesterday, Apollo 11 launched, and man landed on the moon for the first time a few days later. There is a good post with several interesting links at MetaFilter: Apollo 11 (+35).

Science is fun

Here’s one for the science teachers and geeks out there: Howtoons “are one-page cartoons showing 5-to-15 year-old kids ‘How To’ build things. [...] Our Howtoons are designed to encourage children to be active participants in discovering the world through Play-that-Matters — fun, creative, and inventive — and to rely a lot less on mass-consumable entertainment.”

Link via MetaFilter.

In case you’ve been wondering how I’m spending my holidays…

Meanwhile, you’ll find me in the kitchen, preparing Seehk kefta. (And yes, I sent André to the supermarket to do the shopping, lest any of my students see me there. )