AlphaPhoenixIn this video, I measure a wave of electricity traveling down a wire, and answer the question - how does electricity know where to go? How does "electricity" "decide" where electrons should be moving in wires, and how long does that process take? Spoiler alert - very fast!
I've been very excited about this project for a while - it was a lot of work to figure out a reliable way to make these measurements, but I've learned SO much by actually watching waves travel down wires, and I hope you do too!
There will be a Q&A about this video posted in a few weeks on the second channel, and if you head over there right now, you'll see two direct follow ups to this video with experimental details, and a section about "impedance matching" that was cut from this script. https://www.youtube.com/@AlphaPhoenix2
Special thanks to my top Patreon supporters! birdiesnbritts John Sosa Trustham Vladimir Shklovsky Aloysius Sparglepartz Ryan M Jason Whatley Lohann Paterno Coutinho Ferreira Kasper Nielsen Jeffrey Mckishen https://www.patreon.com/AlphaPhoenix
0:00 a hypothetical question 3:30 Measurement difficulties 7:44 Individual oscilloscope traces 10:23 Electricity moves through Y circuit 12:54 The single wire experiment – how electrons move 17:32 Electrons hitting a dead end 20:23 Revisiting the Y circuit 22:16 The water channel model
Watch electricity hit a fork in the road at half a billion frames per secondAlphaPhoenix2023-12-06 | In this video, I measure a wave of electricity traveling down a wire, and answer the question - how does electricity know where to go? How does "electricity" "decide" where electrons should be moving in wires, and how long does that process take? Spoiler alert - very fast!
I've been very excited about this project for a while - it was a lot of work to figure out a reliable way to make these measurements, but I've learned SO much by actually watching waves travel down wires, and I hope you do too!
There will be a Q&A about this video posted in a few weeks on the second channel, and if you head over there right now, you'll see two direct follow ups to this video with experimental details, and a section about "impedance matching" that was cut from this script. https://www.youtube.com/@AlphaPhoenix2
Special thanks to my top Patreon supporters! birdiesnbritts John Sosa Trustham Vladimir Shklovsky Aloysius Sparglepartz Ryan M Jason Whatley Lohann Paterno Coutinho Ferreira Kasper Nielsen Jeffrey Mckishen https://www.patreon.com/AlphaPhoenix
0:00 a hypothetical question 3:30 Measurement difficulties 7:44 Individual oscilloscope traces 10:23 Electricity moves through Y circuit 12:54 The single wire experiment – how electrons move 17:32 Electrons hitting a dead end 20:23 Revisiting the Y circuit 22:16 The water channel modelTwo ways to make asymmetric mirrors (Printing vs. Warping)AlphaPhoenix2023-05-26 | The long-awaited sequel (lol) to my first 3D printed mirrors video, where I take your advice and switch to UV-cure resin, get great results, but not good enough results, and then cheat by silvering a chunk of regular acrylic sheet! This video is a collab with (and the idea of a saddlepoint mirror was from) Steve Mould, so check out his video about this very saddlepoint mirror after you watch this!
A completely different method for obtaining 3D printed mirrors via electroplating that I didn't talk about here but is very cool: https://youtu.be/ywPi1osy7o8
The cool video I referenced about splines - relevant G2 continuity bit at 27:49 (but watch the whole thing!): https://youtu.be/jvPPXbo87ds
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626How does electricity find the Path of Least Resistance?AlphaPhoenix2023-04-17 | Ever wonder how electrons know where they are going? Electricity is a pretty mystifying topic, because electricity seems to be able to do impossible things, or at least things that don't make sense at a normal "human" scale. In this video I use a thermal camera to show electric current through a maze made of aluminum foil. The electric current very efficiently solves the maze, which is awesome, and heats up the "solution" so we can see it! To explain this effect, I printed out the same maze but made of plastic trenches and not metal foil. By running water through this plastic maze, we can learn something about how electrons flow in metals. This analogy does have some limitations that you need to keep in mind, but for the vast majority of cases, I think it does a FANTASTIC job at modeling bulk electron behavior in "1D" wires. At the end of the video, I have a few more mazes that have two solutions each, to test the "path of least resistance" adage.
Also relevant: Discussion of current reflections from resistive loads @ 10:38 in this video from Electroboom and Veritasium https://youtu.be/O-WCZ8PkrK0?t=638
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626Transforming vibrating CO2 into light! (2^16 special)AlphaPhoenix2023-03-25 | Do you ever wonder how lasers work? What makes them different from other sources of light? The answer "stimulated emission" is frequently given, but even more important is achieving "population inversion". In this video I try to explain both, starting from ground level (no pun intended). Specifically, I describe the functionality of my cnc CO2 laser cutter.
I also show off a woodblock printing I made using that laser cutter, replicating the graphics from the opening of The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker. Using watercolor paper, tea, acrylic paint, and water-soluble printing ink, I recreate the prologue for the game.
Excerpt from The Legend of Zelda, the Wind Waker opening cutscene, Nintendo Excerpt from The Legend of Zelda, the Wind Waker: Battle, Koji Kondo, Nintendo Excerpt from The Legend of Zelda, the Wind Waker: Legendary Hero, Koji Kondo, Nintendo Excerpt from The Legend of Zelda, the Wind Waker: Dragon Island, Koji Kondo, NintendoSweeerve (5727 OmegaBytes)AlphaPhoenix2022-09-14 | This past spring I attended the FRC North Carolina State Championships and got to talk to a bunch of the teams. If you've never heard of FIRST Robotics, you're in for a real treat, because this competition is AWESOME. (If you haven't seen the hub video for all these interviews, check it out first! https://youtu.be/BycqWYE3Ais)
These teams, thousands of them, have only about 2 months to design, build, and test robots to play a brand new game before the competitions begin, and then their work is put to the test! It would be a lot for any professional engineer, but these kids are still in high school! It's pretty incredible.
This video is the complete pit interview with FIRST Team 5727. Enjoy! ------------------------------------------------------ To join or support team 5727: http://omegabytes.org/ https://www.facebook.com/omegabytes5727/ ------------------------------------------------------ If you're interested in finding a team or attending an event, here's the official team search from FIRST: https://www.firstinspires.org/team-event-search And if you want to know more about any specific team (like a link to their website) you can probably find it on Blue Alliance: https://www.thebluealliance.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ This is a world map that shows events and teams. I'm not sure how accurate it is because it doesn't look official, but it's a lot easier to search by eye! (and it also doesn't include the other FIRST programs like FLL and FTC (FRC was featured in the video)) https://frcmap.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ If you're looking to help a team as a mentor, volunteer, or sponsor: https://www.firstinspires.org/support ------------------------------------------------------ Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626An Interview with the CHAMPS! (587 The Hedgehogs)AlphaPhoenix2022-09-13 | This past spring I attended the FRC North Carolina State Championships and got to talk to a bunch of the teams. If you've never heard of FIRST Robotics, you're in for a real treat, because this competition is AWESOME. (If you haven't seen the hub video for all these interviews, check it out first! https://youtu.be/BycqWYE3Ais)
These teams, thousands of them, have only about 2 months to design, build, and test robots to play a brand new game before the competitions begin, and then their work is put to the test! It would be a lot for any professional engineer, but these kids are still in high school! It's pretty incredible.
This video is the complete pit interview with FIRST Team 587. Enjoy! ------------------------------------------------------ To join or support team 587: https://www.team587.org/ ------------------------------------------------------ If you're interested in finding a team or attending an event, here's the official team search from FIRST: https://www.firstinspires.org/team-event-search And if you want to know more about any specific team (like a link to their website) you can probably find it on Blue Alliance: https://www.thebluealliance.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ This is a world map that shows events and teams. I'm not sure how accurate it is because it doesn't look official, but it's a lot easier to search by eye! (and it also doesn't include the other FIRST programs like FLL and FTC (FRC was featured in the video)) https://frcmap.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ If you're looking to help a team as a mentor, volunteer, or sponsor: https://www.firstinspires.org/support ------------------------------------------------------ Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626This robot swings like Tarzan (3737 Roto Raptors)AlphaPhoenix2022-09-12 | This past spring I attended the FRC North Carolina State Championships and got to talk to a bunch of the teams. If you've never heard of FIRST Robotics, you're in for a real treat, because this competition is AWESOME. (If you haven't seen the hub video for all these interviews, check it out first! https://youtu.be/BycqWYE3Ais)
These teams, thousands of them, have only about 2 months to design, build, and test robots to play a brand new game before the competitions begin, and then their work is put to the test! It would be a lot for any professional engineer, but these kids are still in high school! It's pretty incredible.
This video is the complete pit interview with FIRST Team 3737. Enjoy! ------------------------------------------------------ To join or support team 3737: https://rotoraptors.wixsite.com/team3737 ------------------------------------------------------ If you're interested in finding a team or attending an event, here's the official team search from FIRST: https://www.firstinspires.org/team-event-search And if you want to know more about any specific team (like a link to their website) you can probably find it on Blue Alliance: https://www.thebluealliance.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ This is a world map that shows events and teams. I'm not sure how accurate it is because it doesn't look official, but it's a lot easier to search by eye! (and it also doesn't include the other FIRST programs like FLL and FTC (FRC was featured in the video)) https://frcmap.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ If you're looking to help a team as a mentor, volunteer, or sponsor: https://www.firstinspires.org/support ------------------------------------------------------ Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626Playing defense with literal thin air? (8634 Bootstraps!)AlphaPhoenix2022-09-11 | This past spring I attended the FRC North Carolina State Championships and got to talk to a bunch of the teams. If you've never heard of FIRST Robotics, you're in for a real treat, because this competition is AWESOME. (If you haven't seen the hub video for all these interviews, check it out first! https://youtu.be/BycqWYE3Ais)
These teams, thousands of them, have only about 2 months to design, build, and test robots to play a brand new game before the competitions begin, and then their work is put to the test! It would be a lot for any professional engineer, but these kids are still in high school! It's pretty incredible.
This video is the complete pit interview with FIRST Team 8634. Enjoy! ------------------------------------------------------ I don't have a link to 8634's homepage (let me know and I'll update!), but here's their BlueAlliance page: https://www.thebluealliance.com/team/8634 ------------------------------------------------------ If you're interested in finding a team or attending an event, here's the official team search from FIRST: https://www.firstinspires.org/team-event-search And if you want to know more about any specific team (like a link to their website) you can probably find it on Blue Alliance: https://www.thebluealliance.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ This is a world map that shows events and teams. I'm not sure how accurate it is because it doesn't look official, but it's a lot easier to search by eye! (and it also doesn't include the other FIRST programs like FLL and FTC (FRC was featured in the video)) https://frcmap.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ If you're looking to help a team as a mentor, volunteer, or sponsor: https://www.firstinspires.org/support ------------------------------------------------------ Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626The most enthusiastic programmers Ive ever met (6502 Darc Side)AlphaPhoenix2022-09-10 | This past spring I attended the FRC North Carolina State Championships and got to talk to a bunch of the teams. If you've never heard of FIRST Robotics, you're in for a real treat, because this competition is AWESOME. (If you haven't seen the hub video for all these interviews, check it out first! https://youtu.be/BycqWYE3Ais)
These teams, thousands of them, have only about 2 months to design, build, and test robots to play a brand new game before the competitions begin, and then their work is put to the test! It would be a lot for any professional engineer, but these kids are still in high school! It's pretty incredible.
This video is the complete pit interview with FIRST Team 6502. Enjoy! ------------------------------------------------------ To join or support team 6502: https://6502.team/ https://www.da.org/thedaexperience/upper-school/competitive-academic-teams/robotics ------------------------------------------------------ If you're interested in finding a team or attending an event, here's the official team search from FIRST: https://www.firstinspires.org/team-event-search And if you want to know more about any specific team (like a link to their website) you can probably find it on Blue Alliance: https://www.thebluealliance.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ This is a world map that shows events and teams. I'm not sure how accurate it is because it doesn't look official, but it's a lot easier to search by eye! (and it also doesn't include the other FIRST programs like FLL and FTC (FRC was featured in the video)) https://frcmap.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ If you're looking to help a team as a mentor, volunteer, or sponsor: https://www.firstinspires.org/support ------------------------------------------------------ Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626Rack and Pinion (2642 Pitt Pirates)AlphaPhoenix2022-09-09 | This past spring I attended the FRC North Carolina State Championships and got to talk to a bunch of the teams. If you've never heard of FIRST Robotics, you're in for a real treat, because this competition is AWESOME. (If you haven't seen the hub video for all these interviews, check it out first! https://youtu.be/BycqWYE3Ais)
These teams, thousands of them, have only about 2 months to design, build, and test robots to play a brand new game before the competitions begin, and then their work is put to the test! It would be a lot for any professional engineer, but these kids are still in high school! It's pretty incredible.
This video is the complete pit interview with FIRST Team 2642. Enjoy! ------------------------------------------------------ To join or support team 2642: http://www.pittpiratesrobotics.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ If you're interested in finding a team or attending an event, here's the official team search from FIRST: https://www.firstinspires.org/team-event-search And if you want to know more about any specific team (like a link to their website) you can probably find it on Blue Alliance: https://www.thebluealliance.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ This is a world map that shows events and teams. I'm not sure how accurate it is because it doesn't look official, but it's a lot easier to search by eye! (and it also doesn't include the other FIRST programs like FLL and FTC (FRC was featured in the video)) https://frcmap.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ If you're looking to help a team as a mentor, volunteer, or sponsor: https://www.firstinspires.org/support ------------------------------------------------------ Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626Psyche out your opponent with LEDs (8727 Glitch 2.0)AlphaPhoenix2022-09-08 | This past spring I attended the FRC North Carolina State Championships and got to talk to a bunch of the teams. If you've never heard of FIRST Robotics, you're in for a real treat, because this competition is AWESOME. (If you haven't seen the hub video for all these interviews, check it out first! https://youtu.be/BycqWYE3Ais)
These teams, thousands of them, have only about 2 months to design, build, and test robots to play a brand new game before the competitions begin, and then their work is put to the test! It would be a lot for any professional engineer, but these kids are still in high school! It's pretty incredible.
This video is the complete pit interview with FIRST Team 8727. Enjoy! ------------------------------------------------------ To join or support team 8727: https://www.glitch8727.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ If you're interested in finding a team or attending an event, here's the official team search from FIRST: https://www.firstinspires.org/team-event-search And if you want to know more about any specific team (like a link to their website) you can probably find it on Blue Alliance: https://www.thebluealliance.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ This is a world map that shows events and teams. I'm not sure how accurate it is because it doesn't look official, but it's a lot easier to search by eye! (and it also doesn't include the other FIRST programs like FLL and FTC (FRC was featured in the video)) https://frcmap.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ If you're looking to help a team as a mentor, volunteer, or sponsor: https://www.firstinspires.org/support ------------------------------------------------------ Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626Why does WATER change the speed of electricity?AlphaPhoenix2022-09-06 | The electrons are back! This is the first of three videos discussing electricity - what is it, how does it work, how do we use it? This first installment talks about the speed of electricity and electrical signals in wires. Next up is Ohm's law, and what resistance really does in circuits, and third, I'll be taking another look at the experiment featured on Veritasium last year, building on the first two videos to explore the mechanism that couples the two long wires with a little more scrutiny. Enjoy!
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626The annual engineering puzzle with 3,225 correct answersAlphaPhoenix2022-09-03 | This past spring I attended the FRC North Carolina State Championships and got to talk to a bunch of the teams. If you've never heard of FIRST Robotics, you're in for a real treat, because this competition is AWESOME.
These teams, thousands of them, have only about 2 months to design, build, and test robots to play a brand new game before the competitions begin, and then their work is put to the test! It would be a lot for any professional engineer, but these kids are still in high school! It's pretty incredible.
Stay tuned for all of the individual pit interviews!
#robots #STEAM #firstroboticsFive years in 49 minutesAlphaPhoenix2022-07-07 | I've had piles and piles of questions about the research that I did in gradschool, so here it is! Be careful what you wish for... About a year ago I defended my dissertation from UCSB in Materials, exploring, among other things, growth of a semiconductor called lead selenide, a narrow-gap material with a bright (ba-dum-tss) future in the realm of infrared optoelectronics. I hope you enjoy!
For more information than you could ever reasonably desire: https://escholarship.org/content/qt9mj491xk/qt9mj491xk.pdf Viewers of the channel are probably going to be most interested in all the fun machines featured in chapter 2, "Experimental Methods" - Molecular beam epitaxy (making crystals in ultra high vacuum) - X-ray diffraction (explained with almost no math) - Electron microscopy (many variants)
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/1662650,000,000x MagnificationAlphaPhoenix2022-06-27 | Today's video is about my favorite microscope ever. I did a lot of work in gradschool on this STEM, or Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope, and today I get to share how it works! Extra thanks to the Materials Department at UCSB for letting me film in the lab!
Admittedly it's old footage, but since it's REAL research, I was waiting for the paper to get published. If anybody's super-curious, here's the doi: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.cgd.2c00188 (unfortunately it's not indexed on SciHub yet - I'm trying to figure out how to get the manuscript posted elsewhere for you guys - check back in a couple days if you're curious!)
Map of Kikuchi line pairs down to 1/1Å for 300 keV electrons in hexagonal sapphire (Al2O3), with some intersections labeled P. Fraundorf https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
The Quantum Realm by The Whole Other YouTube Audio Library License
Memes: Shrek (Dreamworks) Pokemon (Nintendo)The most realistic eclipse timelapse Ive ever taken - Spring 2022 Lunar Eclipse HDR stackAlphaPhoenix2022-06-18 | A real lunar eclipse is DARK - the red moon is super faint, and it doesn't illuminate the clouds around it the way the regular sunlit moon does. Using two cameras, a tracker, and a bit of math. I created a video that's hopefully closer to what the human eye sees than what any single auto-exposing camera would be able to manage.
Music in this video: The Empty Moons of Jupiter by DivKid I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626Eye vs Camera: Why its nearly impossible to film an eclipseAlphaPhoenix2022-06-12 | Hey everyone! it's been nearly a month since the eclipse and I'm FINALLY ready to publish my timelapse - you'll see why it took so long in this video... I set up two cameras and did an extremely crude high dynamic range stack that is able to resolve some detail on the sunlit moon, and some detail on the shadowed moon, simultaneously. I wish I'd taken 6 pictures at once, and that they were easy to align, so that I could have a full lograithmic-ish HDR picture, but for now, this is my best eclipse timelapse yet. I hope you like it!
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626A Lunar Eclipse filmed with two cameras #ShortsAlphaPhoenix2022-06-11 | Lots of detail in a second video, but I've spent the last few weeks since the eclipse trying to process my timelapse into the most realistic view I could. In reality when you look up at a half-eclipsed moon, you can totally see that part of it already looks red, but if you just take a picture with one camera, the dynamic range is nowhere near where it would need to be to actually see what your eye does - so I fudged it - using two cameras and combining both clips in post. Hope you enjoy!
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Arcadia - Wonders by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100326 Artist: http://incompetech.com/Are solid objects really “solid”?AlphaPhoenix2022-01-28 | If you think about idealized physics scenarios, "frictionless vacuum" or "ignore air resistance" may come to mind, but another even more ubiquitous mechanical approximation is the so-called "rigid body approximation" where solid objects are said to be perfect geometric shapes that don't deform at all when force is applied. For a LOT of classical mechanics and mechanical engineering, it's a fantastic approximation, but like all approximations, eventually it breaks down. Today I'm demonstrating a failure of the rigid body approximation by asking "When you apply a force to one edge of an object and it starts moving, does the rest of the object actually lag behind? and if so, by how much?
If you were watching my community posts a month ago, the day that Derek over on Veritasium posted his video about electricity misconceptions, you saw me obsess over that problem a bit too much and immediately use it as the excuse I've been looking for for years to own my own oscilloscope. Instead of two light-seconds of wire, I used about 3 light-microseconds of wire, but it was PLENTY to resolve exactly what is happening in this circuit. I hope you enjoy the analysis!
Thanks to Derek at Veritasium for his blessing to make a real-world version of his gedanken experiment. If you haven't seen his video yet, you might want to go watch that for context, and I also highly recommend ElectroBOOM's video on the topic and EEVBlog's video on the topic. Electroboom's video has some simulated scope traces extremely close to what I saw IRL, and a REALLY fantastic animation (8:27) of him waving an electron around in his hand, shedding magnetic fields as it moves (Even though I ignore magnetic fields in this video - I'm trying to think of a test to find out if they matter).
Music Credits, etc.: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626How to predict random numbersAlphaPhoenix2021-11-26 | So it's been almost 2 years since I said the random-number-machine follow-up video was coming "soon", and it's finally time! (Combined with a fun bit of math regarding perfect shuffles in reply to a fascinating Matt Parker video)
If you take a histogram of the wait times between geiger tube ticks, you get a beautiful exponential decay curve - most gaps between ticks are extremely fast, and it's rare to go a long time without a tick. You can use this property of random numbers to show that ticks coming from a tube are indeed randomly distributed.
Conveniently, runs of interleaved cards in shuffled decks of cards ALSO follow this exponential decay distribution, with short runs representing short wait times between ticks and very long runs of perfectly interleaved cards being rare, just like long wait times between geiger tube ticks. Because these properties of random numbers are so predictable, you can actually calculate the probability of executing a "perfect" or "Farro" shuffle by accident.
Arcadia - Wonders by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100326 Artist: http://incompetech.com/How does a first surface mirror work? (2^15 sub special!)AlphaPhoenix2021-11-12 | After a bit of a hiatus, AlphaPhoenix is live again! In this video I print some parts, coat them in resin, and chemically silver that resin surface, making a first-surface mirror akin to telescope optics but MUCH less precise. (also I use said silvering process to make a play button with actual silver!) Hope you enjoy the classic story of scientific failure and iteration, and maybe learn something about mirrors while you're here!
If anybody is curious to try this themselves, this is very much not a sponsored video, but I was using Smooth-On's XTC-3D as my smoothing agent and Angel Guilding's Spray-Silvering chemicals to deposit the silver. if anybody knows more about these products that might explain some of the difficulties I've had, I'd be all ears!
Till With Bell.wav from Benboncan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license
Arecibo Telescope picture - David BroadAlgorithmic Redistricting: Elections made-to-orderAlphaPhoenix2021-06-28 | If you're a long-time viewer, you'll know that I *really* like random numbers. Today, I'm USING random numbers to generate some distinctly nonrandom maps. I first heard of Monte Carlo simulations in undergraduate computational physics, and have long thought about using it to draw maps with optimized districts. (see "Ising model" for a very similar physics simulation).
I wrote a program to draw maps of Gerrymandered (or not) congressional districts in the state of North Carolina. I'm not getting into the methods and politics, I just think gerrymandering is a fascinating problem to solve, and the Monte Carlo simulation is great at it! You program in an initial condition, and your "desired election results", and the program handles the rest, adjusting the map pixel-by-pixel until it aligns to your desired metrics (and either a really GOOD map, or a really BAD map).
Dial Up Internet Sound BY SPANAC, Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) http://www.freesoundslibrary.comDitch the DSLR? The 200-year-old science of my new favorite camera (2^14 sub special!)AlphaPhoenix2021-05-20 | For my 2^14 subscriber play button, I decided to make a blueprint (cyanotype print) using Ware's "New Cyanotype" chemistry, some printed out transparencies, and ultraviolet light from the sun! But that wasn't quite enough - I wanted to go beyond prints and build a CAMERA - a giant analog camera. Instead of a physical mask that blocks light, a camera uses a lens to focus light onto a piece of chemically sensitized film or paper to form an image. In my case, a very large image on a very large piece of paper… My camera exposes on 11x15" sheets of watercolor paper, and takes about a day to take a photograph. After a water bath, they're ready to go straight on the wall!
#Photography #DIY # Chemistry
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626I went to a Delta IV Heavy Launch!AlphaPhoenix2021-04-27 | Took a break from Dissertation-y things today to visit Vandenberg and watch a Delta IV Heavy take off! The Delta IV Heavy is an enormously powerful rocket and it's pretty awesome to watch one in person. I took my new tripod rig and got some great footage despite the awful ground-level wind.
J.M. Adams, W. Lewis, The Production of Large Single Crystals of Ice, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 5 (1934) 400–402. doi:10.1063/1.1751759. T. Shichiri, Faceted ice crystals grown in water without air, J. Cryst. Growth. 187 (1998) 133–137. doi:10.1016/S0022-0248(97)00839-7. P. Bisson, H. Groenzin, I.L. Barnett, M.J. Shultz, High yield, single crystal ice via the Bridgman method, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 87 (2016) 034103. doi:10.1063/1.4944481. A. Cahoon, M. Maruyama, J.S. Wettlaufer, Growth-Melt Asymmetry in Crystals and Twelve-Sided Snowflakes, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 (2006) 255502. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.255502. T. Gonda, The Growth of Small Ice Crystals in Gases of High and Low Pressures, C, J. Meteorol. Soc. Japan. Ser. II. 55 (1977) 142–146. doi:10.2151/jmsj1965.55.1_142. Y. Furukawa, S. Kohata, Temperature dependence of the growth form of negative crystal in an ice single crystal and evaporation kinetics for its surfaces, J. Cryst. Growth. 129 (1993) 571–581. doi:10.1016/0022-0248(93)90493-G. N.N. Khusnatdinov, V.F. Petrenko, Fast-growth technique for ice single crystals, J. Cryst. Growth. 163 (1996) 420–425. doi:10.1016/0022-0248(95)00980-9. D. v. d. S. Roos, Rapid Production of Single Crystals of Ice, J. Glaciol. 14 (1975) 325–328. doi:10.3189/s0022143000021808.
Vespers - Topher Mohr and Alex ElenaBig Hexagons of Ice 2: Thermoelectric BoogalooAlphaPhoenix2021-02-19 | A DIY Recipe for Giant Hexagonal Ice Crystals
Episode 3-and-a-half (the final episode) of my series on water ice! In this video I discuss the vapor grown ice crystals with a bit more science, and a lot more timelapses! It's amazing what you can learn aout a physical process when you can photograph it continuously for weeks…
J.M. Adams, W. Lewis, The Production of Large Single Crystals of Ice, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 5 (1934) 400–402. doi:10.1063/1.1751759. T. Shichiri, Faceted ice crystals grown in water without air, J. Cryst. Growth. 187 (1998) 133–137. doi:10.1016/S0022-0248(97)00839-7. P. Bisson, H. Groenzin, I.L. Barnett, M.J. Shultz, High yield, single crystal ice via the Bridgman method, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 87 (2016) 034103. doi:10.1063/1.4944481. A. Cahoon, M. Maruyama, J.S. Wettlaufer, Growth-Melt Asymmetry in Crystals and Twelve-Sided Snowflakes, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 (2006) 255502. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.255502. T. Gonda, The Growth of Small Ice Crystals in Gases of High and Low Pressures, C, J. Meteorol. Soc. Japan. Ser. II. 55 (1977) 142–146. doi:10.2151/jmsj1965.55.1_142. Y. Furukawa, S. Kohata, Temperature dependence of the growth form of negative crystal in an ice single crystal and evaporation kinetics for its surfaces, J. Cryst. Growth. 129 (1993) 571–581. doi:10.1016/0022-0248(93)90493-G. N.N. Khusnatdinov, V.F. Petrenko, Fast-growth technique for ice single crystals, J. Cryst. Growth. 163 (1996) 420–425. doi:10.1016/0022-0248(95)00980-9. D. v. d. S. Roos, Rapid Production of Single Crystals of Ice, J. Glaciol. 14 (1975) 325–328. doi:10.3189/s0022143000021808.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake#/media/File:Snowflake_macro_photography_1.jpgImpressions: Every exploit to “break the algorithm” targets this baffling metricAlphaPhoenix2021-02-19 | Welcome to my first meta-video! Today we will be taking a break from physical science (It'l be back tomorrow) and entering the realm of computer science, with a YouTube video about impressions and the recommendation algorithm that has a self-referential updating thumbnail that tells you how many people have seen the thumbnail! I also introduce the "CTR-Watch-Time Product" as a metric for video success, effectively the additional time YouTube expects to retain a viewer by showing them a thumbnail. It's an interesting metric when youtube is behaving normally, and for videos of similar length. At the end, I go into some detail on the python script that's actually updating this thumbnail all the time. Warning: it's absolutely horrendous code… #YouTube #Algorithm #CTRWtP
Deep Thought - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Patrick "push it somewhere else" meme - Spongebob Squarepants Purple Crewmate - Among Us GlaDOS voice and screenshot - Portal/Portal 2 by Valve https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CSIRO_ScienceImage_2042_A_row_of_computer_servers_in_a_server_rack.jpg Slack quotes from other YouTubers used with permissionA DIY Recipe for Giant Hexagonal Ice CrystalsAlphaPhoenix2021-02-12 | Episode 3 of my series on water ice! In this video I walk through my process for vapor-growing single crystals of ice. Starting with a small single-crystal substrate, a large crystal can be grown by depositing vapor. I use a vacuum chamber to evaporate/sublimate water at about -20 celcius, then a peltier cooler to deposit that water vapor back into a solid. The awesome thing is how crystallographic the samples look - lots beautiful hexagonal facets!
Extra special thanks to Steve Mould for a fantastic explanation of the thermoelectric effect: https://youtu.be/O6waiEeXDGo
J.M. Adams, W. Lewis, The Production of Large Single Crystals of Ice, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 5 (1934) 400–402. doi:10.1063/1.1751759. T. Shichiri, Faceted ice crystals grown in water without air, J. Cryst. Growth. 187 (1998) 133–137. doi:10.1016/S0022-0248(97)00839-7. P. Bisson, H. Groenzin, I.L. Barnett, M.J. Shultz, High yield, single crystal ice via the Bridgman method, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 87 (2016) 034103. doi:10.1063/1.4944481. A. Cahoon, M. Maruyama, J.S. Wettlaufer, Growth-Melt Asymmetry in Crystals and Twelve-Sided Snowflakes, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 (2006) 255502. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.255502. T. Gonda, The Growth of Small Ice Crystals in Gases of High and Low Pressures, C, J. Meteorol. Soc. Japan. Ser. II. 55 (1977) 142–146. doi:10.2151/jmsj1965.55.1_142. Y. Furukawa, S. Kohata, Temperature dependence of the growth form of negative crystal in an ice single crystal and evaporation kinetics for its surfaces, J. Cryst. Growth. 129 (1993) 571–581. doi:10.1016/0022-0248(93)90493-G. N.N. Khusnatdinov, V.F. Petrenko, Fast-growth technique for ice single crystals, J. Cryst. Growth. 163 (1996) 420–425. doi:10.1016/0022-0248(95)00980-9. D. v. d. S. Roos, Rapid Production of Single Crystals of Ice, J. Glaciol. 14 (1975) 325–328. doi:10.3189/s0022143000021808.
This video is just a compilation of dendritic growth's greatest hits (at least everything I recorded, minus all the waiting for it to freeze part!) All of the clips I used in the main video in their full form (and a pitch-shifted version of the final clip so you can hear it!) Enjoy!
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626What is polycrystalline water?AlphaPhoenix2021-01-03 | Episode 2 of my series on water ice! Admittedly this is probably the least interesting because it's some negative results, but it's not very scientific to only discuss successes right? In this video, I use a lens to melt ice from the inside out, exposing it's polycrystalline structure (and explain how it's different from a single crystal). With this partially-melted ice, I can do a bit of materials forensics, and actually figure out how it formed, hopefully so I can improve the process in the future!
Next video will be on vapor growth, and I'll say right now that it DOES work to grow centimeters-big faceted single crystals! Subscribe to make sure you see it!
J.M. Adams, W. Lewis, The Production of Large Single Crystals of Ice, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 5 (1934) 400–402. doi:10.1063/1.1751759. T. Shichiri, Faceted ice crystals grown in water without air, J. Cryst. Growth. 187 (1998) 133–137. doi:10.1016/S0022-0248(97)00839-7. P. Bisson, H. Groenzin, I.L. Barnett, M.J. Shultz, High yield, single crystal ice via the Bridgman method, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 87 (2016) 034103. doi:10.1063/1.4944481. A. Cahoon, M. Maruyama, J.S. Wettlaufer, Growth-Melt Asymmetry in Crystals and Twelve-Sided Snowflakes, Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 (2006) 255502. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.255502. T. Gonda, The Growth of Small Ice Crystals in Gases of High and Low Pressures, C, J. Meteorol. Soc. Japan. Ser. II. 55 (1977) 142–146. doi:10.2151/jmsj1965.55.1_142. Y. Furukawa, S. Kohata, Temperature dependence of the growth form of negative crystal in an ice single crystal and evaporation kinetics for its surfaces, J. Cryst. Growth. 129 (1993) 571–581. doi:10.1016/0022-0248(93)90493-G. N.N. Khusnatdinov, V.F. Petrenko, Fast-growth technique for ice single crystals, J. Cryst. Growth. 163 (1996) 420–425. doi:10.1016/0022-0248(95)00980-9. D. v. d. S. Roos, Rapid Production of Single Crystals of Ice, J. Glaciol. 14 (1975) 325–328. doi:10.3189/s0022143000021808. Example of "single crystal casting" through a corkscrew shaped crucible for turbine blades http://040b.synthasite.com/resources/120b.pdf
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626How does PLANETARY RADAR actually work?AlphaPhoenix2020-12-03 | Arecibo was condemned a couple weeks ago, and collapsed a couple days ago as a result of a minor earthquake and well-overdue maintenance. Unfortunately, this deprives the world of its largest Radar Telescope, and radar telescopes are awesome! I've had a really hard time in the past finding good descriptions of how radar astronomy actually works - how do you take a picture of something so far away that the beam diverges by the time it gets there, and diverges even more by the time it gets back!? The answer is math and approximation. Asteroid "images" are actually not any sort of photograph, but reconstructions based on timing and spectroscopy of radar signals.
I'm really happy with how all the animations and whatnot came out, and I hope you like my explanation of delay-doppler imaging! I think it's an absolutely fascinating technique that's seen as just too counterintuitive to get a lot of recognition. Delay-Doppler images aren't really "pictures", but they are sure valuable to researchers (and every human living on Earth under threat of asteroid impact!) Share this video with anybody who wants to appreciate how important Arecibo was, and what such an awesome unique instrument was capable of.
#physics #surfing #wavesThe Sound of Freezing: BONUS RAW FOOTAGEAlphaPhoenix2020-11-09 | For the last few months I've been experimenting with ways to grow ice crystals, and while there's a lot to come on that front (Subscribe for the rest!), welcome to Episode 1: The Sound of Freezing!
This video is just a compilation of dendritic growth's greatest hits (at least everything I recorded, minus all the waiting for it to freeze part!) All of the clips I used in the main video in their full form (and a pitch-shifted version of the final clip so you can hear it!) Enjoy!
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626The Sound of Freezing: Explained!AlphaPhoenix2020-11-09 | For the last few months I've been experimenting with ways to grow ice crystals, and while there's a lot to come on that front (Subscribe for the rest!), welcome to Episode 1: The Sound of Freezing! The vacuum-evaporation setup I used to freeze water in this video was one of the first I tried, and it wasn't until recently I realized that I had inadvertently recorded the SOUND of freezing water - I didn't think it was possible (and I thought freezing water wouldn't make a sound). In this video I explain dendritic growth of crystals, freezing water ice from supercooled liquid, and propose a source for the crackling noise that seems to accompany the formation of ice crystals! Enjoy!
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626Some REAL science for the channel! Growing semiconducting PbSe crystals (MROP 2020 talk)AlphaPhoenix2020-10-29 | I've posted a few videos about awesome equipment I get to use in the lab (and plan to post many more because big fancy machines are awesome) but I haven't actually explained any of my research on the channel! Well that ends today, with a real honest-to-goodness conference talk I gave this January. In our lab, we grow "rocksalt" PbSe crystals (with a structure that looks like a 3D checkerboard) on top of "zincblende" InAs crystals (with a structure that looks like a bunch of methanes stuck together).
So bust out your memory of high school chemistry and learn how bonding, charges, and crystalline symmetry all matter to actual scientific research going on right now at UCSB and Stanford!
Big thanks to MROP, the Materials Research Outreach Program, for having me as a speaker, and also big thanks to Ram Seshadri, Director of the Materials Research Laboratory, for giving me the OK to share this recording! http://www.mrl.ucsb.edu/materials-research-outreach-program
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626Why are metals so stretchy? (2^13 sub special)AlphaPhoenix2020-08-18 | It's play button time, and today it's made from copper foil - a surprisingly stretchable material. You wouldn't think that crystalline materials like metals could deform without destroying the atomic pattern that gives them their strength and electronic properties, but with the help of a crystal defect called a dislocation, it's super easy. Dislocations are agents of plastic deformation, traveling through crystals and enabling malleability and ductility in soft metals like copper, making them great raw materials! I hope you enjoy this dive into the materials science of plastic strain, and if this is your first video here, be sure to subscribe for more!
Thanks to all my OG subscribers, and welcome to the new ones! And a big thanks to Steve Mould for sending some of his awesome fans my way. https://www.youtube.com/user/steventhebrave
Corrections and Clarifications: - "Plastic deformation" is a term that means a permanent change in shape, even in metals, we call it plastic. - There are also grain boundary considerations in polycrystalline materials that I don't address at all - mostly it shows up in tension, because bubble rafts aren't ACTUALLY very ductile. - More to add when I get convinced I'm wrong!
Hestu tune from Nintendo Legend of Zelda: Breath of the WildSpaceXs Starlink, satellite flares, and spectacular twilight rocket plumes: EXPLAINED!AlphaPhoenix2020-07-06 | If you follow as much space news as I do, you've probably heard of Starlink, the low-earth-orbit satellite-internet megaconstellation of 12,000-40,000 satellites that theoretically will be able to provide global high speed, low-latency internet. At the cost… possibly… of filling the night sky with fake stars - little moving spots of light tracing out grids overhead ALL THE TIME. Elon Musk and SpaceX have gotten significant pushback from astronomers regarding this problem, but at this point, it's unrealistic to think the launches will stop, and we need to be thinking of ways to mitigate the effects the reflections will have.
In this video, I use a big scale model to explain how these satellites can be seen from Earth - how they reflect sunlight back towards Earth at night, and how this compares to the previous king of satellite flares, the first-gen Iridium constellation. I also replicate a scale model of the "visorsat" sunshade that will hopefully be effective in blocking the bright reflections from Starlink satellites that have yet to be launched. I also discuss the "twilight effect" that makes rocket launch exhaust plumes so incredible at dusk.
CORRECTIONS: - the "bottom of space" arrow points to the highest livable altitude. The atmosphere still exists here, but it would imply that Everest climbers have been to space... maybe not accurate... the edge of space is often defined as the Kármán line, but humans would be dead long before getting there.
#FieldOfSatTrails Image - Twitter, Cliff Johnson, @lcjohnso, Fair Use
"Stalking Darksat" headline, UniverseToday.com, David Dickinson, Fair Use
VISORSAT headline, Twitter, SpaceNews, @SpaceNews_Inc, Fair UseWhy does smoke from a soldering iron ALWAYS go towards your face???AlphaPhoenix2020-05-28 | Today I've finally answered a question that's bothered me for a long time - if you've ever used a soldering iron, it FEELS like the smoke is ALWAYS blowing directly towards your face, but for years I wrote it off as confirmation bias. It's not. There's a real physical reason the smoke is funneled annoyingly towards your eyeballs, and in this video, aided by a plane laser and a smoke machine, I figure it out!
CORRECTIONS: 1: Safety! Turns out mineral oil smoke CAN be toxic and produce Lipoid Pneumonia, thanks to Cheetah Spottycat below for pointing this out. I chose it initially because the internet told me it wouldn't leave residue all over my garage, but I cannot endorse it as a try-this-at-home technique!
Welcome to Episode Two of my series about molecular beam epitaxy! In this video, I'm talking about the best way to shoot a beam of atoms at something… As much as that sounds like a crazy scifi weapon, it's actually a great technique for delivering material to a growing crystalline thin film. All materials, even solids, have a vapor pressure and are slowly evaporating. When you put a chunk of material in a vacuum chamber and get it hot, it can evaporate so fast the vapor can be directed towards a target! Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about the MBE I could address in future videos!
Till With Bell.wav from Benboncan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license
Phase diagram of water.svg from Wikimedia Commons by Cmglee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license
Hermes Conrad - Character from Futurama, Matt GroeningAir-tight vs. Vacuum-tightAlphaPhoenix2020-03-14 | When I'm not making YouTube videos, I'm growing crystals in a Molecular Beam Epitaxy vacuum chamber held about 12 orders of magnitude below atmospheric pressure. This is the first in what I'm hoping will be a series of videos featuring the MBE chamber, and this time I'm talking about leaks: how to find the tiniest leaks in the most sensitive systems, and how an MBE can be considered basically a perfect pressure vessel with no air leaking in or out at any time. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about the MBE I could address in future videos!
The MBE Lab is part of the Materials Department at UCSB. Filmed with permission.
Extra graphics in this video: ConFlat flange diagrams from Kurt J. Lesker and Vacs SEV
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626The UNKILLABLE Snake AI (Entire 30x30 game)AlphaPhoenix2020-02-17 | If you're anything like me, you'll love zoning out watching a computer play a very basic computer game for hours on end. Here's a half-hour game - the median from my best algorithm - played back at 30 fps.
Music in this video: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Operatic 3 by Vibe Mountain is licensed under a Creative Commons license Mountain by Text Me Records / Bobby Renz is licensed under a Creative Commons license Deserts by Text Me Records / Bobby Renz is licensed under a Creative Commons license Stay with You by Silent Partner Acid Jazz by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons license Acid Jazz by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Kevin_MacLeod/Jazz_Sampler/AcidJazz_1430 Artist: http://incompetech.com/ Surfing Llama by Bird Creek is licensed under a Creative Commons license BoogieBounce by Drew Banga is licensed under a Creative Commons license Pink Lemonade by Silent Partner is licensed under a Creative Commons license Way Out West by Chris Haugen is licensed under a Creative Commons license Space Coast by Topher Mohr and Alex Elena is licensed under a Creative Commons license Not the Only One by Rondo Brothers is licensed under a Creative Commons license Move Ya by Max Surla/Media Right Productions is licensed under a Creative Commons licenseHow to Win Snake: The UNKILLABLE Snake AIAlphaPhoenix2020-02-17 | I watched the CodeBullet Snake AI video on the morning after Thanksgiving and spent WAAAAYY too much time working on an AI of my own. I present to you: Snake, as played algorithmically with Dynamic Hamiltonian Cycle Repair. The snake can never die - like really, actually, literally, can't be killed - it's just a matter of how fast it wins the game…
If you, like me, enjoy watching snakes run around eating apples for hours on end, enjoy this follow-up where I took the median-length game from my best performing algorithm and posted the whole darn thing on YouTube: https://youtu.be/YqL7bl3I5IE
This video has been 4 years in the making… In undergrad I started work on a random number generator that used a geiger tube to generate random pulses and a nixie as the primary display (here's the ancient "it almost works" video: https://youtu.be/dTjmuii5boA). Unfortunately, I couldn't prove it was actually working back then because I couldn't make the geiger tick faster with the test alpha source I had (alpha particles get blocked super-easily). I rebuilt the thing this past summer, and FINALLY got to making the video! I hope you enjoy it!
If you're interested, here's a nice relatively-plain-English summary of the many-worlds-hypothesis (Rick and Morty) and it mentions the competing Copenhagen interpretation (Schrodinger's cat). https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/manyworlds/original.html
Images in this video: Rick and Morty from Rick and Morty on Adult Swim 1925 Model T from ModelTMitch The Rocinante from The Expanse on Syfy/Amazon PrimeMaking the Worlds Smallest Play Button (2^12 subscriber special)AlphaPhoenix2019-09-04 | For this project I got the chance to show off one of my favorite tools from work, the Focused Ion Beam! In this video, I use the FIB to 3d print and etch away material at the nanoscale, making a youtube play button that's only 1 hundredth of a millimeter across. It's made of an amorphous mix of platinum and carbon, and it's so small you need an electron microscope to see it properly. Enjoy!
Also: Thanks to all my subscribers!
Also also: Leave comments for new fabrication techniques for the 2^13 button!
BoogieBounce by Drew Banga is licensed under a Creative Commons licenseOvercomplicating GOLF by simulating every possible shotAlphaPhoenix2019-08-17 | Extra note: I'm starting a Facebook page for AlphaPhoenix with video updates and info about projects I'm working on! https://www.facebook.com/AlphaPhoenixChannel
In this video I take a trip to Thistle Dhu, the famous putting course at Pinehurst and write a matlab program to simulate a million putts at once, all in an effort to map "Phase Spaces" of golf. There's a common scientific mindset normally referred to as a phase space or parameter space, where you express everything that could happen in an experiment in terms of the variables you can control. In the case of putting a golf ball, the ball can go in the hole, or it can miss completely - if it misses, we also care how far from the hole it stopped. You only actually have control of two variables while putting a golf ball, the initial speed and initial direction. After you hit the ball, physics takes over!
Graphic based on plot from McSkimming et al., (2014) 10.1016/j.jcrysgro.2013.10.013How to Boil Water With Water (pt. 2: experiment setup)AlphaPhoenix2019-07-23 | For anybody who wants to try the "boil water with water" experiment for themselves, you're in the right place! This video gives a quick overview of the setup and explains how you set up the experiment to boil water with no applied heat or vacuum pump.
Music: I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626Boil Water at Room Temperature with 50 ft. of Hose and a StairwayAlphaPhoenix2019-07-23 | This was a fun quick experiment that makes a great physics demo about pressures and state-changes of matter. Everybody's seen water boil on a stove, but at the University of Toledo's Saturday Physics days when I was little, I once saw water boil in a vacuum chamber, and for some reason that stuck with me. A few weeks ago I got the idea to try to boil water at low pressure, not with a real mechanical vacuum pump, but by using a massive column of water as a sort of by-default vacuum generator. I used no heat and no motorized pump, but I boiled water at room temperature using only $25 of hardware store parts and an old heavy-duty waterbottle. Enjoy! If you want to try this experiment yourself, I've got a bit more information about physically building and setting up the apparatus here: https://youtu.be/yYBQHFCqw_A