History Of Physics

Who was Thales Of Miletus? 

We begin our journey with the Ancient Greeks who were the fathers of physics. A city called Miletus was home to several Greek philosophers who made significant contributions to physics. One such philosopher by the name of Thales was the first and is widely considered the most important of them all. Thales lived in Miletus or what is now modern-day Turkey from 624 BCE to 546 BCE.

Influence In Ancient Greece

In Ancient Greece, he was part of the highly esteemed Seven Sages of Greece. These were basically legendary philosophers that the Greeks considered crucial in developing their way of thinking. Thales is also considered the first pre-Socratic philosopher. The pre-Socratics are famous for searching for explanations for the unknown phenomenons of nature based on natural predictable laws. During their time they were referred to in the Greek language as "physiologoi" or (natural philosophers).

Thales rejected the popular notion during his time that mythological gods were behind the unknown phenomenons. As a result, he is credited for the "discovery of nature". For example, the commonly accepted explanation of earthquakes was simply the result of Poseidon getting upset. Thales instead theorized that earthquakes were being caused by disruptions in the waters of the sea.

Most Significant Contributions To Physics

As a matter of fact, he is famous for theorizing water was behind basically everything. He believed that everything was made up of water. This idea came to him by observing how water flowed from streams and then into rivers and then into the oceans. Somehow Thales got the idea all things most follow a similar pattern. Now his philosophy would seem a little strange to modern educated minds.  However, at the time it was a very clever way of looking at things. In fact, it was his way of thinking which really made him special. So much so he is considered by many as the "father of science". Do you remember Thales’ Theorem in geometry class? Yep, you guessed it that was him. He was responsible for many advancements in geometry.

 What Does G Stand For

Usually, the letter G in physics stands for the gravitational constant. The term was originally presented in Newton's idea of how gravity works universally. Gravitational Constant is also known as Newton's Constant or universal gravitational constant. Either way, you want to say it is a physical constant involved in the calculation of gravitational effects.

G was measured by Cavendish to have the value of 6.673*10^(-11)  Newtons of meters^2/kilogram^2. Which is not only used in Newton’s law of gravitation but and also in Einstein 's theory of relativity as well.

G is also used in the formula F = G*M*m/r^2. 

    Both m and M are masses of two bodies interacting gravitationally.

    r is the separation of their centers of mass.

    F is the force of gravitational attraction between them.

G can also represent local or global gravitational field. Which represents the force of gravity per unit mass acting on an object.


G may also represent free-fall acceleration or acceleration of gravity.


G refers to the metric prefix Giga as well.  Such as in GHz for GigaHertz. Where Giga represents one billion.

If you are headed to Vegas you do not want to miss the Luxor Sky Beam. Especially if you are a lover of physics!

Luxor Sky Beam

The Luxor Sky Beam is the by far the strongest beam of light in the world.  Its so bright strobe lights are turned before the beam is fully powered up to warn aircraft. The beam can temporarily blind pilots if they go near it. Supposedly it can even be seen from space. The beam is rated at 42.3 billion candela which is the base unit of luminous intensity in the International System. Such a massive construction was only possible to due using computer-designed, curved mirrors. These mirrors manage to collect the light from 39 xenon lamps. Then the magic happens when the design focuses all the light into one narrow beam. Giving us the end result of the most intense light beam the world has ever witnessed. Astonishingly the beam is can be seen as far as 275 miles away at cruising altitude by aircraft on a good clear night. That is as far away as Los Angeles!

Cost To Run The Beam

As you can imagine running such a massive light might run you quite the electric bill. The 39 lamps that are used to power the project are each rated at a very impressive 7,000 watts.  All cost around $1,200 to replace. But what is even more impressive the $20 dollars an hour electric bill they generate in order to power the 315,00 watts needed to power the system. It's estimated that it costs $51 an hour to operate in total! This most of been too much for even the wealthy hotel and casino owners. After 2008 only half of the lamps are now used at a time.

Insanely Hot Lamp Room

You will find the lamp room about 50 feet below the top of the building. This room is serviced by only two workers each day.  The workers have to replace the lamps every 2000 hours. They also have to keep an eye on the lamps to make sure they are not getting too hot.  This hot room gets up to 300 °F while the lights are operating.  The workers even have to use spacecraft insulation wrap to try to minimize the insane heat coming from lamps as much as possible.

Vegas Sky Beam Created Its Own Ecosystem

Have you ever heard about the Luxor sky beam bugs? The creators of the sky beam probably realized when they first turned the massive light in October 15, 1993, they were turning on the worlds largest sky beam. However, no one knew they were also turning on the world's largest bug magnet! That's right, very soon after the light was turned on a lot of moths made their way to the Beam. In the future maybe instead of saying like moths to a flame, we should say like moths to a sky bream? But the fun did not end there. Soon after the moths arrived the beam technicians soon found out the huge number of moths were attracting a likewise huge amount of bats hungry for moth dinner. The story does not end there. Soon after the bats arrived a likewise huge number of owls showed up for the bats. Yeah so apparently, owls like some good moth feed bat meat. Now, my friends, we have a little man-made ecosystem going on in Vegas.

Have you ever heard of a magic shake flashlight? Check out our breakdown of the famous Faraday Flashlight and find out if they are legit.

What Is The Point Of A Shake Flashlight?

How Does A Faraday Flashlight Work

It's called a Faraday flashlight because it's based on Faraday's law. This is sometimes referred to as Faraday's law of electromagnetic induction. The most important things you will find inside the flashlight is a copper wire coil with somewhere in the thousands of windings.  As well as a permanent magnet which is to the left or right of the coil depending on which direction you tilt the flashlight. This is because the magnet slides through the coil wire when tilted or shaken.

The power that is generated each time you shake the flashlight will vary depending on this magnet and the number of windings of the copper wire. The stronger the magnet is the more power it will produce.


The higher the number of windings of the copper wire the more power is generated from each shake.

You will also find a simple circuit. I will explain where the simple circuit come into play in just a moment. When there's a changing magnetic field in the flashlights wire coil there will be an induced current. The induced current is then sent in a direction to create a magnetic field that opposed the changing magnetic field that was created as a result of the magnet sliding through the wire coil. The current that is created by the process of the magnet sliding through the coil is taking by the simple circuit I mentioned before. The simple circuit then charges a capacitor. Finally, the capacitor acts as the power source for the flashlight. The quality of capacitors will vary among flashlights. However, I can tell the higher the quality the longer the light will shine. Also, the type of bulb that is being used is also important in regards to how long the flashlight will shine. Usually, a low watt LED used due to their low power demand.

Quick Summary 

The magnet goes back and forth through the center of a copper wire coil each time you shake the flashlight. This process generates an electrical current which is used to charge up the capacitor. The capacitor is then is usually used to a power an LED light. These flashlights are actually very simple mechanically.

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Weight of Cereal

The weight of the cereal will depend on a couple of factors such as the density of the cereal and the size of the box. Most bands of cereals come in a wide variety of sizes. Much like t-shirt sizes, you can expect sizes ranging from small to large. Unlike clothing sizes, however, you will also see sizes like family and giant as well. That said there is no consistency among cereal manufactures in regards to weight. For example, a family size box from one manufacturer may weigh 21oz and 22oz for another. This is in most part due to the wide-ranging weight of the ingredients used to make the cereal.

How many pounds does my Cereal weigh?

For this example will be using the family size fo Cheerios one of my favorites. If you are looking for a different band no worries. Almost all cereals provide the same measurements in a similar fashion so this should work for you. Near the bottom left-hand corner of the box of Cheerios, I found it's net weight measurements.  This box of cereal weighs 21 ounces. If you translate that to pounds you will get 1.3125 pounds. If you are looking for grams then the 21 ounces becomes 595 grams as stated on the box.

How much does the average box of Cereal weigh?