Image credit: Joe Wolfe; image source; larger image

PhysicsCentral: Fiddle Physics - Nov 16, 2009

These patterns, known as Chladni patterns, show modes of vibration on a guitar faceplate and a metal plate. The motion of the plates shakes sand into lines where the surface is still--these lines are called nodes. Read more about Chladni patterns here, and see the larger image for more Chladni patterns on a guitar. Check out PhysicsCentral: Fiddle Physics to see how a fiddle works and how Chladni patterns form on a violin faceplate. You can watch Chladni patterns form in this YouTube video, Chladni Patterns on a Square Plate.

image credit: Reed Research Reactor, Creative Commons; image source; larger image

Nuclear Power - Nov 1, 2009

Nuclear reactors create heat through nuclear fission instead of burning fossil fuels. Learn about fission and how nuclear reactors work at Nuclear Power.

Why does the water in a nuclear reactor glow blue? When particles enter water moving faster than the speed of light in water, blue light is produced, like in the picture above. Read more about the mechanism here.

image credit: ROSAT Mission, Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik; image source; larger image

APOD: X-Ray Moon - Oct 16, 2009

What you see above is two images of the moon in x-ray light as it moves in front of an x-ray binary star system. The binary is visible as a yellow dot in the first image before being obscured by the moon in the second. Learn more about this image here. To see another image of the moon in x-ray light, see APOD: X-Ray Moon.

image credit: Mário G. Silveirinha, Physical Review Letters 102, 193903 (2009); image source; larger image

Through a lens, darkly - Oct 1, 2009

This image shows a prediction of how a "metamaterial" prism bends light. The prism is the white wedge in the middle, and the white light shines on the prism from below. To learn about metamaterials, see Through a lens, darkly and this Discover Magazine article.

Compare the position of the red light in this spectrum to what you see in Physics in Your World.

image credit: Bjornar Sandnes, University of Oslo; image source; larger image

Granular Materials - Sep 16, 2009

Is this the maze from Labryinth or the back of a kid's cereal box? It's actually fingers of air winding through a fluid and grain mixture as it drains. You can see more pictures here.

Find out about granular materials and research going on in the field from this University of California, Santa Barbara research page.