Engineering Daily.

thisistheverge:

Vergecastin’

3 of the coolest people ever on the Internet, Josh Topolsky, Nilay Patel and Paul Miller. 

To say that I’m ecstatic right now is an understatement. Hard work and perseverance have paid off, and now (hopefully, if I get the grades) I am studying in a place where I have never thought possible. 

So, throw any questions you have at me, ask for stuff to be covered or correct me on my mistakes (which there are plenty of, I’m sure)

Thank you :)

I used to go on Tumblr a lot…until I took an arrow to the knee.

A very good (if slightly outdated) paper on basic cryptographic methods.

Leaving this here as a reminder to myself to read it when I have more time and no exams looming ahead. Seems like a good place to start for beginners who want to understand more about cryptography (I sure do) 

Crazy Pilot Flyby at 1m.

(With thanks to Gizmodo for providing the video) 

So this pilot with the Argentinian Air Force - damned Argentinians, who else is crazy enough to do this?! - flies low over trees and flies past his colleagues on the ground at an altitude of just 1m off the ground. If you thought the pilot’s POV was insane, just check the footage from his “friends” if you can call them that after what he did.

From a physics point of view, a jet fighter flying that low to the ground is subjected to ground effect. As the altitude of the plane decreases to 1-1.5 x its own wingspan, the air pressure below the wing increases. This results in an artificial reduction of aerodynamic drag causing greater speed and lift on the plane. This may make it more dangerous for a pilot to fly at low altitudes, since the greater speed calls for an even faster reaction time than normal. Add to that your usual barrage of obstacles such as buildings, pylons and yes, other people too. 

Edit: this is my 100th post! Finally made it to this nice achievement :)

I’m sorry but that’s just stunning. Once again I’m complaining at the fact that the UK has no space program of its own. Grumble.

More pictures can be found…here!

http://triggerpit.com/2010/11/22/incredible-pics-nasa-astronaut-wheelock/

Gauss knows Alice and Bob's shared secret.

Coding/cryptography related jokes aimed at a famous mathematician and physicist? This site is so good…like Chuck Norris jokes on a whole new intellectual level.

Pendulum Waves

Exploiting the isochronous nature of pendulums in a really fun way. Simple harmonic motion is demonstrated here by the fact that each individual pendulum will sweep out an arc of a set frequency regardless of how much energy you put into it at the beginning. This is due to the relationship of: T (time period) = 2 pi x sqrt(l/g) where you can see that the frequency is entirely dependent on the length of the pendulum and the gravitational field strength.

It’s also weird to see that the pendulums move in and out of step of each other, sometimes going into chaotic patterns and then settling back in to a pattern of some sort. For that I have no reasonable explanation, apart from maybe the lengths of the pendulum strings are part of a mathematical progression or sequence to make these waves happen.