ScienceIQ.com

Eratosthenes Measured Earth’s Circumference—Centuries Before Columbus Sailed

Eratosthenes (c. 276 – 194 BC) was born more than 2200 years ago in the Greek city of Cyrene, now a city in the North African country of Libya. (The Greek Empire surrounded much of the Mediterranean Sea and included present day Greece, Turkey, the Middle East, and regions of northern Africa.) As a teen, Eratosthenes (air-uh-TOS-thuh-neez) was sent ...

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EratosthenesEarthCircumference
Mathematics

Origins Of The Meter

The origins of the meter go back to at least the 18th century. At that time, there were two competing approaches to the definition of a standard unit of length. Some suggested defining the meter as ... Continue reading

OriginsOfTheMeter
Engineering

How Can A Bullet-proof Vest Stop A Bullet?

Here's an experiment: take the small coil springs from a dozen or so retractable pens and roll them together in a heap until they are thoroughly tangled and entwined. Now try to pull them apart from ... Continue reading

BulletproofVestStopABullet
Astronomy

Black Hole Sound Waves

Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have found, for the first time, sound waves from a supermassive black hole. The 'note' is the deepest ever detected from any object in our Universe. ... Continue reading

BlackHoleSoundWaves
Engineering

What Are Composite Materials?

A composite material is one in which two or more separate materials have been combined to make a single construct having more desirable properties. What many people don't realize is that composites ... Continue reading

CompositeMaterials

Vibrational Energy

VibrationalEnergyWhy is hearing such a rich and powerful sense? Maybe because it alone of all the senses has the power to fill our entire body with vibrational energy. We sometimes think of hearing as one of the 'distant' senses, distant because we can use it to perceive things from a distance without having to get too close. In some ways, though, hearing is a much 'closer' sense than even taste or touch.

All the senses gather energy, but only sound can set your body vibrating like a giant tuning fork. Sound is, in fact, vibration. When vibrations in the air beat against the thin skin of your eardrum, stretched tight like the skin of a real drum, it commences to vibrate at almost exactly the same frequency. So the first step in hearing is when your ears internalize and match the external vibrations traveling through the air, and a part of your body begins to vibrate in harmony with the soundwaves themselves.