Freedom 7

Fifty years ago today, Alan Shepard became the first American (and the second person, after Yuri Gargarin) to enter space. The Mercury program was the first step (followed by the Gemini and Apollo programs) towards the moon landing. Those 16 minutes of going up and coming back down again are commemorated in this model by Dave and John Xandegar of briXwerX Studio.

Very Large Array

The Very Large Array is a multiple aperture radio telescope. That is, it is made up of 27 separate dishes that can be configured over a 22 mile radius to act as one huge radio telescope. Special carriers on railroad tracks allow the dishes to be arranged into different configurations. The VLA has been used to study such phenomena as ice on the surface of Mercury and cosmic jets of material expelled from distant galaxies. It's also showed up in popular culture, as in the final scenes of Contact. BTW, that's a really horrible movie, but the book is outstanding. If you read the book you learn about graduate school in the sciences, how research funding works, how radio antennae study distant galaxies, how we can encode and decode messages and international relations in the sciences. If you watch the movie you get to see Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey hook up.



BTW, David Wegmuller even built a wprking mechanism to move his VLA dish, above. Now he just needs to build 26 more of these and spread them out over a gymnasium floor.

Arecibo Observatory

An optical telescope gathers the light coming from a distant object, such as a star or planet. Visible light, though, is only a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum ranging from very low energy (long wavelength) to high energy (short wavelength). It's just the set of energies that happen to interact with our eyes. Stars and other astronomical objects produce energy over the whole range, and radio telescopes can gather information about these stars by looking at this energy. The Arecibo Observatory in Peurto Rico is the largest single aperture telescope around at 1000 feet in diameter, and it has led to such discoveries as the first binary pulsar, the first extrasolar planets, and prebiotic molecules in a distant galaxy. You may also recognize it from movies like Contact, where Jodie Foster first meets Matthew McConaughey. BTW, that movie ends at ... (hmm, guess you'll have to come back tomorrow) ...



Along with this, John Knight has done a number of other virtual LEGO models, including a highly detailed Space Shuttle, Vostok 1 and the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, among others. I hope he gets around to building these out of actual LEGO bricks. I know he has some, such as he used in his Hubble Telescope.

Great Scientific Theories - flat Earth

JETfri has started a project to illustrate great scientific theories, with a touch of humor. Let's start with the flat Earth theory. Contrary to what many believe, in western civilization a belief in a flat Earth was dispelled a few centuries BC. This was probably first noticed by sailors leaving port and seeing their point of origin drop below the horizon due to the curvature of the earth. As early as 240 BC Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth by comparing the shadow cast by the sun in two different locations. From this point on all educated people knew that the Earth was round (uneducated people probably never considered the matter). For instance, if you read Dante's Divine Comedy, he travels down into the Earth through Hell, and climbs up a tunnel on the other side to find Mount Purgatory (he even describes the flip in the pull of gravity as he passes through the center of the Earth). When Columbus proposed to sail around the Earth to reach China, the objection was not that the Earth was flat and that he would sail over the edge, instead it was that the Earth was way too large and he would run out of supplies before ever reaching China. Indeed his detractors were correct - Columbus vastly underestimated the size of the Earth. It was only the placement of the Americas that saved his journey from disaster - If there were just ocean all the way from Spain to China his men would have died of thirst long before they made it there.

Bricks in Space

Today's launch was postponed, but part of the payload on this mission is a set of LEGO blocks. This is part of the Bricks in Space program, that has put together a number of lesson plans using LEGO on the International Space Station to get kids interested in science. It looks like astronauts on the ISS will be building simple machines out of LEGO to demonstrate principles of physics in zero gravity, and then kids in class can build the same machines and compare the results in normal gravity. I believe this mosaic was part of a LEGO display at Cape Canaveral for people who came to watch the launch. It looks like both President Obama and the recovering Representative Giffords (whose husband is a Shuttle astronaut) were on hand, despite the cancellation of the launch. Well, maybe they at least got to check out the LEGO display. :)

Möbius strip

In the mid-nineteenth century mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing found that if you take a strip of paper, give it a half twist, and attach the ends, you create an interesting object. If you follow your finger along the surface you will find that it has only one continuous surface (that is, as you follow along you will end up covering both sides of the strip. If you try to cut it in half, you only end up with a longer strip with two full twists. The mathematics describing this, and similar objects, gets quite complex. Möbius strips have found applications beyond being mathematical oddities. For instance, conveyer belts are often built as Möbius strips so that they have even wear and tear. In chemistry, Möbius aromaticity involves a ring of atoms that incorporates a half twist. Crazyjoe579 made this LEGO version.

Physics by Design

Barbara Bratzel has been using innovative methods to teach kids science, and LEGO is one of her favorite classroom tools. Her eighth grade class is called Physics by Design, and she's gathered the lessons she's designed into a book (now in its third edition) so that other teachers can benefit from the same techniques. She has her students designing robots and simple machines to teach them principles of mechanics and construction. She says that LEGO is a great tool to get kids interested in science, even those who might not normally gravitate to it.

Bioturbation

That's the process of soil (or other substances) being mixed up by the activity of animals. Worms are among the most important actors in this process, which is vital to the health of the ecosystem. Darwin actually studied this process, and his last book was The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, with Observations on their Habits. On his front lawn he had a stone that he carefully observed daily, noting how the action of worms underground led to settling of the soil. Kaptain Kobold recreated the worm stone in celebration of Darwin Day earlier this year.

Poly(1-cyanoethylene/1-phenylethylene/but-2-ene-1,4-diyl)

Serious LEGO fans know that ABS is the plastic that makes up those little bricks. Some of those go further and know that this is a polymer made up of acrylonitrile, butadiene and styrene. But what is that? Let's take a step back and learn a little bit about polymers. A polymer is like a chain. Each link of a chain is identical, and the difference between two chains of the same material is simply the number of links. The process of connecting one link to the next is the same whether you're talking about the third link, the thirtieth, or the three thousandth.



In a polymer, the individual links are small molecules that get connected together to make one big long molecule. For instance, PVC, or polyvinylchloride, starts out with separate molecules of chloroethane made up of two carbon atoms, three hydrogen atoms, and one chlorine atom. In the image below I show just five molecules coming together to make a short chain (color coded to make them easier to see), but in a polymer you will have hundreds or thousands of links connected to each other.



ABS is a more complex polymer made of three pieces. The A is acrylonitrile (blue in the picture below), B is butadiene (magenta) and S is styrene (red). This is called a copolymer. You could put these together in any number of different ways. For instance, the chain could be ABSABSABSABSABSABS, or AAABBBSSSAAABBBSSS, or AAAAABSAAAAABSAAAAABS. The different patterns, and relative amounts of the three pieces, will lead to polymers with different properties. I wasn't able in a quick search to find the exact mix in the plastic that LEGO uses, so I showed one industrial instance that divides the chains up into two blocks - sections of repeating ASASAS and other sections of repeating BBBBB. This plastic is produced in small pellets (often with color agents and other inclusions, though my photo just shows some raw uncolored pellets) which are then used for the injection molding process.

Vostok 1

Today is the 50th anniversary of our first step off this planet of ours. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gargarin climbed in the Vostok 3K-A capsule atop a modified R7 rocket and launched into space. After a single orbit of the earth, lasting just under two hours, Gargarin returned safely to earth. Incidentally the R7 rocket was originally designed as an ICBM, but found much more use in the Russian space program. Variants of this rocket design are still used today to launch cosmonauts into space. Reto Geiger built a LEGO version of Vostok 1.

Crab Nebula

In 1054 AD Chinese and Arab astronomers noted a bright star in the sky. This was a supernova, the explosive death of a star. The cloud of gas left behind was first observed in 1731. It was eventually dubbed the Crab Nebula, because to some observers it was shaped like a crab. At the center lies the Crab Pulsar, a neutron star that is a strong source of radio waves and gamma rays. In addition to their astronomical significicance, these great clouds of gas and dust are often sources of interest due to their beauty, as seen in this mosaic by Arthur Gugick.

Mitosis

Cells produce offspring by the process of mitosis. First the parent cell DNA is replicated so there are two identical copies. Fibers pull the two sets of chromosomes to opposites ends of the cell, and then the cellular membrane pinches together in the center to make two identical cells. The director of the MIT Community Outreach and Education Program developed a series of LEGO models to help kids learn about biology, including this mitosis animation. These models, joined together under Sciene Builders, Inc. were at one time available for sale through LEGO Education, though it doesn't look like they are available any more. Don't worry, though. These are pretty simple constructions, so you could easily build your own based on their inspiration. If you need LEGO bricks, check out BrickLink.

Hayabusa

In 2003, Japan launched the Hayabusa probe towards asteroid 25143 Itokawa. After studying the asteroid for a few months, the probe collected physical samples from the surface of the asteroid. Then the probe returned to the earth, where the samples were collected last year, and they are now being studied. In81212 made this LEGO model of the Hayabusa probe.



Incidentally, I should note that this model is what led to this blog. I've considered doing a blog along the lines of real science for a while now, but when I saw this I thought it deserved some notice. So many people make LEGO creations (called MOCs) of fictional space ships, but it's cool to see some real ones as well.

What came first, the dino or the egg?

That's the question asked by Playmo figure 4925, Scientist wtih Baby Dino.

Happy birthday, Bunsen

I'm sure I'm not the only one who logged onto the computer this morning and wondered why Google had a bunch of lab equipment as their logo. It turns out today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Robert Bunsen, designer of the gas flame burner we've all used in lab (see a LEGO version by Neodymium-boy below). Bunsen created this gas flame (or improved on previous designs, to be more exact) as part of his study of emission spectra of elements. When you heat up a substance, the energy can bump electrons from lower energy levels up to higher energy levels, putting them at a higher potential energy. This is analogous to lifting a weight - by putting in energy, you are putting the weight at a higher potential energy relative to the earth's gravity. When you let go of the weight, it will fall back down. The same is true of electrons; they will relax from a higher energy state to a lower energy state. That energy has go go somewhere (the conservation of energy tells us that energy is neither created nor destroyed, it simply changes forms), and in many cases it is given off in the form of light. Studying the energy of the light given off tells us about the relative energies of the electrons involved.

Dissected frog

I have no idea how I made it through all those years of science education and never dissected anything (oh, in one biochem lab we had to isolate proteins from rat livers, but my lab partner was a biologist and she did the actual dissection). Regardless, cutting into a frog, or a fetal pig, is a common activity in both high school and college science to teach students the details of anatomy. Some have argued that the educational value of this is overrated, and have proposed virtual dissections or other alternatives. Dave Kaleta came up with another solution, a LEGO dissected frog. If you look close, you can clearly see the heart, the lungs, the liver and the spine. There are a couple of elements I don't recognize, but given the authenticity of the rest, I'm sure Dave was working to closely emulate his source material.



BTW, in looking around the web, I've seen some other interesting variations, such as a knitted frog. That one also led to another interesting blog, the Art of Science, that I'm going to have to read more closely.

Particle Accelerator

Shane Larson is a physicist at Utah State University, and also a LEGO hobbyist. So it's very appropriate that he built a scene of the target from a particle accelerator. He's even included a photo and diagram of the real thing so you can compare. A particle accelerator takes charged particles (like protons) and propel them at great velocities at a target. When they crash into the target, they break apart into even smaller building blocks, that can then be studied by the physicists to learn about the fundamental structure of matter.



BTW, this is a vignette, or a scene built on a small base. For more vignette LEGO creations, see VignetteBricks.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Think green for Saint Patrick's Day, green chemistry, that is. In recent years there has been a real movement for more environmentally friendly, or 'green chemistry'. This means the development of processes that are more efficient, use more bio-friendly materials (like water as a solvent instead of something like chloroform), and produce less waste. Janet Scott, who focuses on green chemistry at Monash University in Australia has developed a series of reactions she calls moelcular LEGO, because she synthesizes molecules with activated 'male' and 'female' groups that click together like the studs and tubes of LEGO bricks. She can then connect these pieces in various ways to make much larger molecules.



I should note that she is not the first person to use LEGO as an analogy for chemical transformations. A quick search of pubs.acs.org, which is the site for those chemical journals published by the American Chemical Society, turns up over 200 hits on the word 'LEGO'. Some of these are from the Journal of Chemical Education, where actual LEGO bricks were being used for demonstrations to teach chemistry to kids, but others are research articles. There are surely similar instances in other scientific disciplines. I'm sure I'll feature many such articles here on SciBricks in the weeks and months to come.

Discovery

A few days ago, the Space Shuttle Discovery finished its final mission. Originally conceived in the late 1960's the Space Shuttle program was designed as a replacement for the Apollo program, that brought the first men to the moon. Unlike Apollo, the Shuttle is largely re-usable, cutting down on the expense and allowing for over 130 missions by the five Shuttle craft (two destroyed, two still in operation, and the Discovery retired this past week). These missions have included scientific experiments, deploying, servicing, and occasionally retrieving satellites, and the construction of the International Space Station (more on that in future blog posts). LEGO has released many official sets focused on space exploration over the years, including a few different variations on the Space Shuttle, including one that is specifically the Discovery, set 7470, seen here deploying the Hubble Telescope (more on the Hubble in a future blog post).

Molecular models

I guess I should start things off with one of my own and give a little insight into myself. Chemists in general, and organic chemists in particular, often build models of the molecules that interest them. Dean Tantillo, a friend of mine who is a chemist at UC Davis, assembled a gallery of photos of chemists and their models. A model could be defined as a representation of a real object that tries to capture some of the properties of that object while abstracting other properties. For instance, a model airplane built out of LEGO might capture the basic shape and color scheme of a real airplane, but it is much smaller and does not fly. A molecular model allows us to examine the relative arrangements of atoms in a molecule, but is obviously at a significantly different scale. Nobel laureate Roald Hoffmann has a great essay on how the method we use to depict molecules affects how we think about them (compare to Orwell's thoughts about how the language we use affects how we think). His essay is more about 2-dimensional depictions, but it also applies to 3-dimensional models.



Here is a LEGO model of formaldehyde that I built, sitting next to a model using a commercially available molecular modeling set. In the color scheme that organic chemists tend to use, the black sphere represents a carbon atom, the red sphere represents an oxygen, and the white spheres represent hydrogens. The gray lines represent bonds, or shared pairs of electrons. Note that two of the bonds are single bonds and one is a double bond. Also note that the angles between the bonds are roughly 120 degrees, which is appropriate to the actual model.

On a personal note, I really do think that my building with LEGO as a kid helped contribute to my interest in science as an adult. When I took chemistry and started building models, it immediately took me back to the happy days of my youth playing with a pile of little plastic blocks. Thinking in three dimensions is very important to an organic chemist, and again I think that LEGO modeling helped develop that skill.