Month: April 1997

Why do we have time?

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Why do we have time? — KD, McMinnville, Oregon

Time is the fourth dimension, similar to but not equivalent to the three spatial dimensions. With four dimensions in our universe, we need four values to specify the exact location of each event—three values that specify that event’s location in space and one value that specifies its location in time. Space and time are intimately related so that we perceive time in terms of space and space in terms of time. For example, you sense the distance of a remote city by how long it would take you to get there. Similarly, you sense the large separation between two moments in time by how far you could travel between those two moments. But as to “why we have time,” I can only answer that it’s part of the nature of our universe.

Is it possible that time is not just an abstraction but also a sort of resonant …

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Is it possible that time is not just an abstraction but also a sort of resonant force that can be contained and manipulated within a controlled environment? — SK, Cape Town, South Africa

Time is a dimension, much like the three spatial dimensions. Objects and events are located in time, just as they are located in space. Because time is part of the framework in which objects and events exist, and not an object or an event, time can’t be manipulated easily. So the short answer to your question is no, time can’t be contained or manipulated. However, time and space are related and how we perceive the two depends on our velocity—the special theory of relativity. Moreover, time and space can be warped by the presence of mass/energy—the general theory of relativity. Still, the dream of playing with space-time like it was taffy that could be stretch, bent, and folded at will is just that, a dream. It takes an enormous concentration of mass/energy to cause even the most barely perceptible deformations of space-time and even the effects of celestial objects on space-time are limited. Finally, about the expression “resonant force”: a resonance is a motion or action that spontaneously follows a repetitive cycle while a force is a push or a pull, an influence that causes something to accelerate. Thus, the expression “resonant force” is interesting sounding jargon but it doesn’t have any meaning.

How do neon lights work?

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How do neon lights work? — MT, Cement City, MI

A neon light uses a very high voltage to propel an electric current through a low-density gas of neon atoms. These neon atoms are trapped inside a glass tube and the current passes between two metal electrodes at opposite ends of that tube. A high voltage power supply—typically a neon sign transformer—pumps a large number of negative charges onto one electrode and a large number of positive charges onto the other electrode. Because like charges repel while opposite charges attract, there are strong forces pushing the charges from one electrode toward those on the other electrode. Eventually, charges at the two ends of the tube begin to leap off the electrodes and into the neon gas so that they can flow toward one another. Current begins to flow through the tube. As the charges move through the gas, they frequently collide with neon atoms and occasionally transfer some of their energies to those neon atoms. During such an energy transfer, an electron in the neon atom shifts from its normal orbital to a higher energy orbital in which the electron doesn’t normally travel. The electron soon returns to its normal orbital and releases a particle of light—a photon—in the process. Since the most common orbital shift in an excited neon atom releases a particle of red light, a neon light emits a bright, reddish glow.

Do the resonant frequencies of the elements change as the magnetic fields they r…

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Do the resonant frequencies of the elements change as the magnetic fields they reside in change? Can an element such as iron be made to resonate at the magnetic field strength of the earth? — JP, Blakeslee, PA

The terms “resonant” and “resonate” are general expressions that refer to repetitive motions or actions that occur spontaneously within a system. Elements exhibit many different resonant behaviors in different situations, so I must pick an appropriate resonant behavior in order to answer your question.

The best choice I can think of is nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)—an effect that involves the flipping of an atomic nucleus’s magnetic poles. Most atomic nuclei—the massive positively charged nuggets at the centers of atoms—are magnetic. When you put an atom with a magnetic nucleus in a magnetic field, the atom acquires a certain amount of potential energy that depends on whether that magnetic nucleus is aligned with the magnetic field or not. The extent to which the atom’s nucleus is aligned with the field can be changed by exposing it to an electromagnetic wave of the right frequency. This electromagnetic wave provides or absorbs the required energy to allow the nucleus’s magnetization to flip. The nucleus exhibits a resonance in response to the correct electromagnetic wave—a phenomenon called “nuclear magnetic resonance.” This frequency at which this resonance occurs depends on the nucleus, on the magnetic field, and on the magnetic environment of the nucleus. The resonance occurs for any magnetic nucleus, in any field, but how interesting or useful the resonance is depends on the situation. So the answers to both questions are yes, but that doesn’t mean the effects are important.

When two identical items are cooked, one with a microwave oven and the other on …

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When two identical items are cooked, one with a microwave oven and the other on the stove, which will cool faster? — CR

If the distributions of temperatures inside the items were the same after cooking, they would cool at the same rate. However, a microwave oven tends to cook relatively evenly throughout the food while the stove tends to cook from the outside of the food inward. That means that food cooked in a microwave oven tends to have more thermal energy near its center than food cooked on a stove, even when those foods contain the same total amount of thermal energy. Since foods lose heat through their surfaces, the extra thermal energy in the food cook by microwave will take longer to flow out to the surface of the food and from there to its surroundings. All else being equal, I would expect the food cooked in the microwave oven to cool slightly slower than the food cooked on the stovetop.

How does an integrated circuit perform computations? I know that it has transist…

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How does an integrated circuit perform computations? I know that it has transistors embedded into it, but how can a circuit of semiconductors be used for multiplication? — DF, Marina Del Rey, California

The transistors used in digital integrated circuits, including microprocessors, act primarily as electronically controlled switches. These transistor switches permit the electric charge on or electric current in one wire to control the electric charge on or current in another wire. In digital electronics, a wire’s charge or current state is used to represent a single binary digit—either a 1 or a 0. By combining transistors in modestly complicated arrangements, the states of several wires together can control the states of several other wires. This increased complexity allows for simple functions such as binary addition to be performed—for example, the charges on two wires can be used to control the charges on two other wires so that the charges on the second pair of wires represent the single binary sum of the two individual numbers represented by charges on the first pair of wires. More complicated adders can be assembled from more transistors and finally multipliers can be assembled from a collection of adders. Overall, it only takes a few arrangements of electrically controlled switches to form the primitive elements from which incredibly complicated digital processors can be built.

How does a fan motor work?

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How does a fan motor work? — JM, Toronto, Ontario

A fan motor is an induction motor, with an aluminum rotor that spins inside a framework of stationary electromagnets. Aluminum is not a magnetic metal and it only becomes magnetic when an electric current flows through it. In the fan, currents are induced in the aluminum rotor by the action of the electromagnets. Each of these electromagnets carries an alternating current that it receives from the power line and its magnetic poles fluctuate back and forth as the direction of current through it fluctuates back and forth. These electromagnets are arranged and operated so that their magnetic poles seem to rotate around the aluminum rotor. These moving/changing magnetic poles induce currents in the aluminum rotor, making that rotor magnetic, and the rotor is dragged along with the rotating magnetic poles around it. After a few moments of starting, the spinning rotor almost keeps up with the rotating magnetic poles. The different speed settings of the fan correspond to different arrangements of the electromagnets, making the poles rotate around the aluminum rotor at different rates.

What are the frequency characteristics of transformers? Are they related to the …

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What are the frequency characteristics of transformers? Are they related to the circuit components and the ratio of primary to secondary turns around the iron core? — JM, Lakewood, Colorado

The frequency characteristics of a transformer are determined principally by the materials in the transformer’s core. Power flows from the primary circuit to the secondary circuit by way of the magnetization of the transformer’s core. With each half-cycle of the alternating current in the primary circuit, the transformer’s core must magnetize and demagnetize. A transformer core’s ability to magnetize and demagnetize properly depends on the frequency of the alternating current in the transformer’s coils. If that frequency is too low, the core may saturate—reach its maximum possible magnetization—during the half-cycle. In that case, the core will not be able to transfer the requisite amount of energy to the secondary coil and the power transferred between the two coils will be inadequate. That’s why low frequency transformers often contain huge iron cores—cores that avoid saturation by spreading out the magnetization and stored energy over large volumes of iron.

On the other hand, if the frequency of current in the primary is too high, the core may be unable to magnetize and demagnetize fast enough to keep up with it and the power transfer will again be inadequate. The core may also become hot due to friction-like losses in the core material. That’s why high frequency transformers use special core materials such as ferrite powders or even air. Although air (or really empty space) can’t store large amounts of energy in small volumes when it magnetizes, it can respond extremely quickly. Air-core transformers operate well at extremely high frequencies.

What causes the phases of the moon?

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What causes the phases of the moon? — CH, Denver, Colorado

Except during an eclipse, one half of the moon’s surface is bathed in sunlight while the other half is in shadow. The phases of moon occur because we can only see half the moon at any moment and the fractions of lighted and shadowed moon that we see vary with about a four-week cycle—the lunar month. For example, when the moon is almost on the opposite side of the earth from the sun, we see only the lighted side of the moon and the moon appears full. When the moon is on the same side of the earth as the sun, we see only the shadowed side of the moon and it appears almost non-existent—a new moon. Each lunar month, our vantage point gradually evolves so that we see the new moon become a growing crescent moon, a half moon, a gibbous moon, and a full moon, a gibbous moon, a half moon, a shrinking crescent moon, and finally a new moon again. You can see this effect by illuminating a soccer ball with a bright flashlight and then walking around the soccer ball. You’ll see the phases of the soccer ball.

How can you demonstrate that sounds are waves produced by the vibration of mater…

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How can you demonstrate that sounds are waves produced by the vibration of material objects? — TP, Huntington Park, California

I can’t think of an easy way to make sound waves visible while they travel through air, but it’s relatively easy to make sound waves visible as they travel through materials. If you choose a system in which the sound waves bounce back and forth many times through a material, you can sometimes see the sound waves as they move. For example, partially fill a crystal wine glass with water and then rub your wet finger gently around the rim of the glass. With some practice, you’ll be able to get the wine glass to emit a pure tone as your finger alternately sticks and slips its way around the glass rim. As this tone appears—the vibration of the crystal glass itself—the water will begin to exhibit beautiful ripple patterns. You should be able to see these ripples by looking at a bright light reflected from the water’s surface. The ripples are sound waves that are travel through the water, back and forth, as the glass vibrates.

Another system that makes the movement of waves visible is a stiff, thin aluminum plate that’s supported rigidly and horizontally at only one point. If you sprinkle fine sand lightly over the surface of this plate and then bow its edge with a violin bow, it will begin vibrating with a clear tone. As it vibrates, the sand will drift into places where there is very little surface motion—the nodes of the vibrating surface. Once again, sound waves are traveling back and forth across this surface and the up-down motions squeeze the sand into certain parts of the plate. In this case, the surface’s vibrations and the sound waves in that surface are the same thing—in example of the fact that vibrations and sound waves are intimately related and are in many respects exactly the same thing.