This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has two segments. Here’s how they begin: Physics vs Mona Lisa — The wood and smile of the Mona Lisa fascinate scientists. Not wooden smile. Wood and smile. A new study in the Journal of Cultural Heritage reveals how researchers have spent 18 years exploring the wooden panel on which Leonardo da […]
Tag: Physics
What will happen if you fall into a pool of honey?
This video, made by iFaces in Pakistan, asks the plain question “What will happen if you fall into a pool of honey?” The answer it presents involves some Ig Nobel Prize-winning research about swimming:
Physics: The Rotation of Whirling Dervishes
“Rotation of Whirling Dervishes” is a review column about some of the scientific research that focuses on whirling dervishes. Specifically: (1) Physics of the Skirts of Whirling Dervishes, and (2) Whirling Dervish in an MRI Tube. The column appears in the special Rotation and Spinning issue (volume 28, number 5) of the magazine. You can […]
New Cutting-Edge Research About Old Saws
The physics of musical saws, explored by Ig Nobel Prize winner Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan, was profiled in the New York Times: “Now L. Mahadevan, a professor of physics and applied mathematics at Harvard, along with two colleagues, Suraj Shankar and Petur Bryde, has studied the way the saw produces music and drawn some conclusions that help […]



