Physics Central is sponsoring a contest with a Super Bowl tie-in — a prize for the best video “that demonstrates some aspect of physics in football.” (Is there such a thing? Need you even ask?) Just load it up to YouTube with the tag “nanobowl,” but hurry — the deadline is this Sunday, February 3rd.
The winner will receive (seriously) a nanoscale trophy, visible only with an electron microscope! Oh yes, and the winner will also receive $1,000. In normal-sized money.
Cosmic Variance is a group blog by people who, coincidentally or not, all happen to be physicists and astrophysicists:
Our day (and night) jobs notwithstanding, the blog is about whatever we find interesting — science, to be sure, but also arts, politics, culture, technology, academia, and miscellaneous trivia. We have similar outlooks on many things, widely disparate opinions about others, and will do our best to keep the discourse reasonably elevated.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
It’s really just a fake: they’ll give the winner an invisible speck of dust sealed in plastic.
January 30th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Hmmm. If I don’t have an electron microscope, can I use one of those wacky near-field optical microscopes to see enough detail? What if I tried to cheat the uncertainly principle with a NFM for the “Heisenberg microscope” example, what would stop me?
February 4th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
In case anyone is interested (parents of football fanatic kids with enquiring minds for example), a book on football science had a good review in a UK newspaper last weekend: “How to Score”, Ken Bray, Granta, £7.99.
I guess it’s more about what they call “soccer” in the US than American football or baseball, but it may mention other games.
February 4th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Me again, sorry
http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Score-Ken-Bray/dp/1862079889