Stringwave is a seemingly simple physics toy that can keep you busy for a while! Change the settings and parameters and see what your waves and echos are like. This is something my grandmother would call "a play-pretty" and my father the scientist would call "addictive". Link -via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
Stringwave is a seemingly simple physics toy that can keep you busy for a while! Change the settings and parameters and see what your waves and echos are like. This is something my grandmother would call "a play-pretty" and my father the scientist would call "addictive". Link -via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
Comments (9)
I did my graduate work in dynamics (vibration emphasis), so I can tell you that programming something like this is non-trivial. There are a lot of short cuts that could have gotten the basic points across, but they took the time to make it really physically meaningful.
Polychromatic Millipede
at MOWA museum of web art
http://www.mowa.org/kids/kids_main.html
for hours of useless fun
Its impossible to be electrocuted by a computer, unless you're going for a Darwing Award :) ... in that case you deserved it.
First, the wirings are always insulated, and touching them is not a risk. I've done it.
Second, no personal computer I've heard of uses 380 VOLTS. It might have been 380 WATTS, which is quite different from 380V. Actually 380W is a quite common value for PSUs, specially for older computers.
The currents in the Power supply Unit (aka PSU) are rather high, but the voltages are low (12V max). A working PSU can give you a shocking experience (pun intended!), but not enough to kill. You either have low voltage and high current or high voltage and low current.
Touching the electronic circuits in the computer (like motherboard) will not kill you, and the motherboard will be damaged before you even feel the shock (I've been there!!). Voltages in the motherboard vary from -12V to +12V, so, if he was extremely unlucky, the most voltage he could get from the motherboard would be 24V.
In a 110V shock, studies show that you need at least 4 mA to even starting feeling the "tingling". A real shock starts at 300mA. An average size adult man needs at least 5A to die from a 110V shock. anything below that might not kill you, but might give you varying consequences, from brain and heart damage to severe burns.