Nothing extremely physics-ey happened to me in recent days so the only thing I could think of blogging about was electromagnetic pulses because we're studying electricity. See, I watched the Animatrix a couple of days ago (it's decent if you don't mind anime and a bit of gore). It's basically like a bunch of episodes shot in the anime style that have something to do with The Matrix (you know, the movies). Part of it gives a history of what led up to the world as it's portrayed in the movies. The plot summary is that humans made robots, robots did all the work, we didn't appreciate them, robots gained artificial intelligence and one of the robots killed his owner in order to save himself from being destroyed. Humans react by trying to destroy all robots, they fail, robots make their own city which dominates the world economically b/c they're efficient and stuff. Humans get pissed, attack robots w/ nukes, doesn't work, they attack back, we fight em and are losing. We blot out the sky b/c they use solar energy (that's why it's always dark outside in the Matrix), we still lose, and then most of the people are put into those pod things to be used as a replacement energy source. It's all very intriguing stuff with the philosophical questions of what life is etc.
Over the weekend, I played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which rocks, and in the game there is an electromagnetic pulse that turns off all electronic devices. This reminded me of the movie because I thought it would be a perfect way to kill the robots. Intrigued, I googled it up and read up a little on it and I was surprised on what it actually was.
Electromagnetic pulses aren't anything new, having been observed since the 1940's. They are bursts of electromagnetic radiation that causes very powerful electric and magnetic fields (electric fields ooh). The strong electric field creates high voltages in electrical devices, which causes damage and is the reason that these pulses are able to destroy electronic equipment. Electromagnetic pulses are created mostly by the detonation of nuclear devices. I was taken aback a little because the movie stated that the humans used nuclear weapons on the robots but that they were ineffective because the robots were resistant to heat and couldn't be hurt by radiation. However, the nukes should have created electromagnetic pulses. This is an example of some of the misconceptions people hold about EMP's. Learning about them was interesting and supplemented my current physics work so Yeah!
It's really bright and thus hard to see but that is definitely an incandescent bulb. The fridge info is just a bonus. I then looked and spotted the switch that turns the bulb on when I open the door.
From our studies into electrical circuits, I'm pretty sure that when I open the door of my refrigerator, a spring pushes this little doodad out, which completes the circuit and turns on the light. When I close the door, this button gets pushed back in and the circuit is broken, turning off the light. Cool.
