Banana Skins – their promise as an industrial lubricant additive

The work of Kiyoshi Mabuchi, Kensei Tanaka, Daichi Uchijima and Rina Sakai, who were awarded the 2014 Ig Nobel Physics Prize for measuring the amount of friction between a shoe and a banana skin, and between a banana skin and the floor, when a person steps on a banana skin that’s on the floor, continues […]

Candied orange agony: “I continue to control the hell out of the variables”

Ann Finkbeiner writes about the tricky chemistry and physics of candied orange peel made according to the recipe of a Hungarian physicist’s grandmother. Here’s a passage from the middle of the lament: …The recipe no longer works. I continue to control the hell out of the variables. I use the same amount of orange peel, […]