I have returned!

Okay, so I wasn't away for that long, but it felt like millennia. I haven't really been anywhere, it's just that I realized that I had about two weeks of physics and chemistry work that I haven't even started, so I got to it over the last few days. It wasn't really complicated stuff, as it was just an introduction to both the subjects which mainly meant mathematics, atomic theory and scientific method and measurements revision; easy stuff. On the subject of beginner physics, I bring you my newest comic.

Probability of someone making a portal-related cake joke; 95%.

For those of you who don't know the Σ symbol means sum of and the F means forces. When something is not moving, the sum of all forces acting upon it are not netting any movement in any direction, so ΣF=0. So the comic is saying that the sum of forces (choosing between the cake and the ice cream) acting of the little fatty is equaling zero. Funny, right?

That's enough of that, I now come to last posts' winner; Burger! Burger correctly stated the venturi effect in regards to my drawing in my last post. A quick explanation about the effect is this; when a substance is traveling at a faster speed, it is at a lower pressure and the venturi tube (as illustrated) demonstrates this. When a non-compressible fluid is traveling through a pipe of a particular size at a particular rate and then subjected to a narrowing of the pipe, the velocity of the liquid must increase to maintain the same rate of flow. As a result of this increase in speed, there is a notable decrease in pressure of the fluid, as is evident in the difference in levels of the fluid on the vertical pipes.

As promised, I drew a picture just for Burger. I apologize for not doing anything more intricate, I really could not think of what to do. Anyway, I hope you like it!

Never thought of practicing calligraphy on the computer. Oh wait, I was suppose to type something witty here... Mission accomplished.

I think it's time to get back into physics for a little while before I get some sleep. Thanks again for reading!

New Books!

First, I want to apologize for not getting a post out yesterday, I worked until 10pm and just didn't feel like using the computer when I got home (although it's not that valid of an excuse because I worked just as late tonight). Anyway, I'm not going to do a huge post tonight as I have to be at the Wodonga Middle Years College in the morning to meet with the teacher that I'll be spending the semester with during the in2science program. Exciting, to say the least.

I also got my physics and chemistry books that I've been craving oh-so badly. The semester for both subjects technically started last week, but the book store is slow and I haven't had any books, so consequently couldn't do any reading. I was happy to sit down and read the first couple of chapters of the chemistry book, which made me think of tonight's comic. I really wanted to do something simple because, as I said, it's late and I need to be up in the morning, so I hope you guys enjoy it, or at least get it.

And before you know it, she'll want to have quarks!

I've also decided not to join the Golden Key Society, as I've heard far to many bad things about it to justify risking 90 of my dollars on it when I can barely afford food. Thanks to everyone that offered advice on the subject, I appreciate it.

So to finish off the post, another competition! It's simple enough, and I'm sure someone will get this very easily; just name the phenomenon that this picture is illustrating. I would also appreciate a short description on what's going on.

I'm all up in your planes, makin' dem fly, yo.

As always, a personalized picture for the winner! Have a lovely evening everyone.

This is science

So after a painstaking three hours, I'm finally finished with the drawing that I promised Layman Researcher for winning my competition a couple of days ago. I'm pretty proud of it, I was thinking about what I wanted to do for it all day while I was at uni. A couple notes, I refer to the pseudoscientists and the mathematical fallacy, as Layman Research has posts about them on her blog. Be sure to check it out btw!

In other news, my birthday went pretty good. My wonderful fiance made me a great breakfast before I left in the morning, and made a fantastic steak dinner tonight. She's also making a delicious smelling cake as I'm writing this. It really made my day, as I'm not a huge fan of spending nine hours at university on Monday, but I got through it alright. 

On the subject of uni, I thought I would ask the advice of my fellow bloggers. I received a letter from the Golden Key International Honour Society on Friday congratulating me on my good grades last year and inviting me to join their little club. Great, I'll be in this cool club for smarties, one problem though; they want 90 of my dollars. I looked around on the net a bit and found that some people don't recommend going with them, as you never get anything in return. So I was wanting to hear from all you lovely people; has anyone joined the society? Why? Why not?

Some of my earlier followers may remember that I had signed up to participate in the in2science mentoring program. Basically, it involves going to a high-school and spending a few hours in a class once a week. My role there is to try and inspire young minds with the intrigues of the scientific world and encourage them to become future scientists. I brought this up because I'm meeting the teacher that I'm going to be with on Thursday to go around the school and get orientated. I'm really really excited about the whole thing and can't wait to inspire young minds.

As one last thought, and just in case I ever look back at this blog years from now, I finally cleaned out the bowl of potato salad that has been in the fridge since Christmas. Surprisingly, it didn't smell at all, but was unfortunately filled almost to the brim with bacteria spores. I wonder if my lawn is going to benefit from having so much bacteria spread all over it.

I'll be off now, thanks for all of the fantastic birthday wishes and interest. I really want to try and keep up with comics, but it does take time and I'm a busy person, so please stay tuned!

One last sentence so the text lines up with the bottom of the picture, because I'm crazy like that.

Happy birthday!

It's my birthday today! I'm now 23 years old and feel no different than yesterday. However, let me not get too hung up on minor details; I love a great birthday, and love celebrating it with people I care about.

Well, enough of that. In the meantime, I've been making up for lost progress after having lost a bunch of work on photoshop. I still haven't done a picture for Layman Researcher, but the one I did for Siphil is done and ready to go. Sorry for those of you who haven't seen the movie, but this is based on "2001 A Space Odyssey". Siphil's blog is called "2011 A Space Odyssey", so I thought I would tie that into a comic for him. I am surprisingly proud of myself for the center image.

When was the last time you battled evil computers and went through crazy colored tunnels of light? Hmm?

Some of you may notice that I have an awesome new site design, this is thanks to the lovely nerdspiffy that made it for me out of the kindness of her heart. Check out her blog if you haven't already; she's got a lot of great posts and is working on a graphic novel called "Vexing".

I think that's it for tonight, I won't have a competition for this post, as I'm still behind one drawing and I have nine hours of uni tomorrow, which will surely wear me out enough as it is. So I'll leave with an opening sentence of a book that I'm never going to write (it's kind of my hobby to think of great lines in books that will never be written or great scenes in movies that will never be filmed).

"The expression on his face reflected the degree of uncertainty in the approximation he had just given."

Oh man, oh man

So, I was working on a way good comic for about two hours, and bam! Photoshop crashes and I haven't saved it once. I'm so unbelievably mad right now. There was no slowing down, or me clicking weird things, it was my in the middle of drawing a line and then "photoshop has stopped working, would you like to get mad or explode into oblivion?". So I guess I won't have a new comic for you tonight.

Regarding yesterday's winner, Siphil, I'll try and have a picture for you tomorrow, I apologize for the delay. On the topic of yesterdays competition, carbon, I just wanted to talk about it for a brief second. In atomic theory, electrons orbit the nucleus, however, they're not just orbiting all at the same level, there are shells. As you can see in my drawing of carbon, the smaller ring is the inner shell, and the bigger ring is the outer shell. Each of these shells can only hold a particular amount of electrons, for example, the first shell has a max of two, the second has a max of eight (the third gets more confusing, as it can hold 18, but not without first putting some into the fourth, but you get what I mean). 

Now, all atoms want to become stable; and if an atom has a full outer shell, it is considered to be stable. If it has only 1 electron in its second shell, it wants to lose that electron, and become stable. If it has six electrons in its outer shell, it wants to gain two and become stable. I hope this is making sense. To illustrate this principle better, I drew a picture. Here you see two atoms that have only one electron in their outer shell, therefore they're considered unstable. In between them, you see an atom with six electrons in its outer shell, again, therefore it is unstable. For all of these atoms to become happy and stable, they do what is called "covalent bonding", or electron sharing. By sharing in electrons, both of the smaller atoms (hydrogen) and the larger atom (oxygen) all have full outer electron shells. Most of you have picked up already that this is water!

Lemme at some 'dem 'lectrons.

Now, back to the reason why carbon is so special. Carbon has four of a possible eight electrons in its outer shell. This means for it to become stable, it either needs to lose four, or gain four electrons. This is exactly the reason it is so special, because it can bond so well with many different things, and is exactly why it's the basis of all life as we know it, and why we are called carbon based life forms.

I think that's enough of that for now. For our competition, I want to give science a break, and go with a movie. What movie is this screen shot from?

Probably the only movie I've seen where it looks actually like they had someone do it properly.

Enjoy your evening!