High School SMILE Meeting
04 April 2006

Information:

• Write-ups for academic year SMILE meetings for the current semester may be found at http://www.iit.edu/~johnsonp/acysmile.html, and write-ups from previous semesters are permanently located at http://www.iit.edu/~smile/biweekly.htm.
• Your hang tag for parking at IIT is valid in the parking lot by the Keating Gymnasium on Tuesday afternoons, 4-6:30 pm, until the end of the Spring semester 2006.  Be sure to put this hang tag on your inside rear view mirror when you park here.
• Raymond Wilson, Professor Emeritus at Illinois Wesleyan University, is giving a workshop entitled Hiroshima and Nagasaki for College Teachers on June 26 - 30, 2006.  For details see the following website:  http://titan.iwu.edu/~physics/Hiroshima.html.
• John Scavo pointed out that early tomorrow morning the time and date will reach 01:02:03 on 04-05-06!
• Earl Zwicker called attention to the article Uranium Atoms Don't Share the Vibe on the Physical Review Focus website:  http://focus.aps.org/story/v17/st11.  It seems that there can be vibrations of a few atoms, that do not spread through the material.
• Porter Johnson called attention to an excellent set of  Rainbow Images:  http://www.missouriskies.org/rainbow/february_rainbow_2006.html. It contains some fantastic photographs of the inner rainbow, the outer rainbow (with colors reversed), and Alexander's Dark Band. These pictures were taken in Missouri in February 2006.  Also, here is an artist's conception as to what's going on inside your PC:  http://www.newportharbor.us/computerworks.htm.
• Porter called attention to the fact that the recent explosion at a chemistry laboratory at a French University may have been causd by a leaky cylinder containing Ethylene gas. For details see the website  http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2006/03/24/explosion_news.php,
• Porter pointed out that PSSC films can now be ordered in video format  from Educational Development Center, Inc at the following website:  https://secure.edc.org/publications/prodview.asp?799.
• Roy Coleman will receive an award from the IIT ALumni Association this semester.  There will be a reception for Roy on Tuesday, 02 May, the date of the very last SMILE meeting.
• For details on future meetings of the Illinois State Physics Project [ISPP] see their website: http://ispp.info.  For details concerning Physics Northwest meetings see their website:  https://www.edline.net/pages/Physics_Northwest.

Fred Schaal (Lane Tech)                      Looking for 6174
Years ago, when calculators were new, Fred came across a very interesting phenomenon. Write down any 4 digit number (such as 1234) and arrange the digits so that there is the largest number possible (4321) and the smallest possible number (1234) and subtract the smaller from the larger. In this case you get 3087. Repeat the process with the new number 3087 (i.e., 8730 - 0378 = 8342). Keep repeating the process.  We obtained

Walter O. MacDonald (VA Hospital and CPS)                The EnergyCel
Walter brought a video describing the Energy Cel. It claims to increase the efficiency of internal combustion engines when placed around the fuel line. The theory is that the magnetic field produced by the magnets in the device breaks up clusters of fuel molecules, resulting in more complete combustion. One dynanometer test overseen by a news team showed a 10 % increase in gas mileage and a road test (overseen by the same news team) showed a 27 % increase in gas mileage. The cost of  the device plus installation is about  $300. Despite the reported results our group was skeptical! Walter, however, put one on his car and his anecdotal report is that his car seemed to run better (although he did not calculate fuel efficiency before and after). Porter also pointed out that if the EnergyCel results in a leaner mix of gas to air, it might cause too hot a temperature in the cylinder, which might result in burned valves. A spirited discussion of modern internal combustion engines, modern gasoline, etc. ensued!  Let us know how your gas mileage goes!  Thanks, Walter.

Karlene Joseph (Lane Tech)              Go Figure
Karlene brought a children’s book called Go Figure by Johnny Ball: http://www.amazon.com/Go-Figure-Totally-Numbers-Nonfiction/dp/0756613744.  It is a book about numbers. One section asks the question, “What if we had no numbers?” We couldn’t report sports scores, TV listings, and a million other things! There is also a section on the pyramids (Karlene loves ancient cultures!). The dimensions of the pyramids are arranged so that several interesting relationships occur. Another interesting item is that about 100 years ago the State of Indiana tried to pass a law decreeing that p would be exactly 3.2!  For details see The Indiana Pi Bill:  http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/crd/Localgov/Second Level pages/indiana_pi_bill.htm.

Here’s another one about p (we thank Archimedes for this one). A circle inscribed inside a square of side 1 has a diameter of 1 and a circumference of p. The perimeter of the square is 4, which means p must be less than 4. Repeat with a hexagon inscribed inside the circle (hexagon perimeter 3.0); now p must be greater than 3. Archimedes iterated this up to a 96-sided polygon and found that 223/71 < p < 220/70 (or 3.14084507 < p < 3.142857143).  For details see Archimedes Traps Pi:  http://physics.weber.edu/carroll/archimedes/pi.htm.

Then Karlene gave us each a triangle cut from a piece of paper (random shapes and sizes). We then talked about the things we know about triangles. One is that the total of the three angles is 180 degrees (the same as a straight line). Karlene then had us tear off the three corners and use the little angles to tuck into one another and see if we got a straight line and we surely all did! One can do the same with a planar quadrilateral to obtain 360 degrees. Neat stuff!  Thanks, Karlene.

Terri Donatello (retired)                          Newspaper Articles
Terri brought in two recent newspaper articles. In one a team of MIT scientists tried to recreate Archimedes death ray:  http://web.mit.edu/2.009/www//experiments/deathray/10_Mythbusters.html. While they did not disprove that it actually happened, they showed that it was unlikely to have worked. A second article was about the current neutrino project at Fermilab (in which IIT is significantly involved). It described a continuing experiment in which neutrinos made at Fermilab sre beamed 450 miles to a detector 0.5 mile below the surface in the Soudan Underground Iron Mine in northern Minnesota:  http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/soudan_underground_mine/index.html.  Thanks, Terri.

Our next SMILE meeting will be on Tuesday April 18, 2006. See you there!

Notes prepared by Ben Stark and Porter Johnson.