The Omnifarium

Pumpkin Time!

Sun, 28 Oct 2007, 19:24

It's almost Halloween! We already had one pumpkin picked out. But our daughter brought home another one from her visit to Black Creek Pioneer Village. So we had two pumpkins to carve this time. The one on the left is her design.

Hans

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Butterfly

Category: Stained Glass
Thu, 25 Oct 2007, 09:52

I didn't get a lot done last week since I got hit with that cold that's running around. But I did finish my first stained glass project, a simple butterfly.

Hans

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The Rotating Paper Cylinder

Category: Science
Thu, 18 Oct 2007, 20:51

I first tried this more than three decades ago after reading about it in Martin Gardner's monthly column in Scientific American. It was a fun trick, and at the time, it almost convinced me that I had psychic powers.

To do this "experiment", make a cylinder out of a piece of paper as shown in the following photo. Before you glue the ends together, you may decorate the cylinder as you please. Support the cylinder with another narrow piece of paper pushed through slits on opposite sides of the cylinder, and balance it on a suitable narrow support with a pin or needle. The cylinder should rotate freely. If necessary, adjust the cylinder so that it rests more or less vertically.

With the cylinder balanced and still, carefully cup your hands around the cylinder without touching it, as shown by the following photo:

Concentrate on the cylinder. After a few seconds, the cylinder should start to rotate. Before I offer the explanation for this behavior, think about why this happens.

One possible explanation is telekinesis, the ability to initiate movement without perceptible mechanical means, merely using the power of ones mind. Think of ways to test this hypothesis. Is it even possible to test this hypothesis? Note that if the theory is not testable, it is not, by definition, a scientific theory.

The real reason for the rotation of the cylinder is quite mundane. The cylinder is quite vulnerable to the slightest air currents. By cupping your hands around the cylinder, you are magnifying the slightest currents, increasing the chances that the cylinder will be affected by these currents. Your own breath may itself contribute to the "breeze" surrounding the cylinder.

A clever sort of person, though, could easily convince gullible spectators that his psychic powers moved the cylinder.

I'll leave you with a chemistry joke I heard recently at the Ontario Science Centre. Two atoms are chatting:

First atom: "I just lost an electron."

Second atom: "Are you sure?"

First atom: "Yes, I'm positive!"

Hans

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Results of 2007 Election in Scarborough-Guildwood

Category: Politics
Thu, 11 Oct 2007, 14:13

The results are in, and the Liberal candidate Margarett Best won in Scarborough-Guildwood. At first, this riding was considered too close to call, with no incumbant and a string PC candidate running. But as the campaign wore on, the eventual result became clearer and clearer.

What happened? First, the Conservatives were plagued by their leader's commitment to full funding for separate schools. As elsewhere in the province, that was a factor here as well. But Sylvana brought up another point. Conservative Gary Grant is a retiree from the Toronto Police force. Since many people in the riding belong to visible minorities, many of them were probably unwilling to vote for a former police officer. Think about it: First, would he get any support from anyone stopped for "driving while black"? Second, there are people who come from countries where the police presence is perhaps a bit too heavy-handed.

There's also the issue of crime. Certainly, there are places in Toronto, parts of Scarborough-Guildwood in particular, where crime is a problem. But overall, Toronto remains one of the safest cities in the country, and most Torontonians know it. Running on a crime platform is not likely to gain much support.

What this means to the upcoming federal election is yet to be seen. But if history is a judge, the Scarborough-Guildwood Conservatives will likely trot out yet another candidate who looks good on paper, but will be trounced by the Liberals.

Cheers!

Hans

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Introduction

Category: Stained Glass
Thu, 11 Oct 2007, 14:11

For a while, I've been interested in stained glass as a creative hobby, but was always intimidated by the skills needed. But this year, Sylvana signed me up for a course, and so now I'm taking the plunge. This section of my blog is intended to document my efforts in learning about stained glass. I plan to write about the tips I learn, as well as current projects.

My class meets once a week at the Cedar Ridge Creative Centre in Scarborough. At first, there were seven students, but three got turned off by the cost involved and dropped out immediately. Cost is certainly an issue since you need a number of tools specific to the craft. These include a soldering iron and a glass cutter. A grinder is also needed and is the most expensive of all the tools, but before making that commitment, we can use the grinder at Cedar Ridge.

Courses are also available at the local stained glass store, Glass Images, which provides a 10% discount to anyone taking a course in stained glass, including courses held elsewhere. When I bought my tools and supplies there, the sales person was very helpful, and answered all my questions. She even filled my glass cutter with oil, and engraved my cutter with my initials!

At this weeks class, we practised cutting glass. Personally, I expected this to be the most difficult aspect of the craft, but I had little trouble, even with breaking apart pieces of glass with my hands. We started with clear window glass, which easily broke apart cleanly. It takes a bit of a knack, though. The action needed is a combination of flexing the glass and pulling it apart. Cutting colored glass was a little bit more difficult, but still not as bad as I had first expected. During the class, I don't think I made any mistakes, even with more difficult inside curves.

Next week we get to foiling and soldering the glass pieces. I decided to start with an easy project, a butterfly consisting of five pieces of glass. I'll post a photo when I'm done. Later, I hope to try my hand at three-dimensional pieces.

Hans

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One Week To Go

Category: Politics
Thu, 04 Oct 2007, 10:22

We're in the last week of the election campaign, and the predictions are showing a Liberal win. My riding (Scarborough-Guildwood), which was first considered too close to call, appears now to be in favor of the Liberal. The Liberals are even ahead in Don Valley West, where PC leader John Tory is running!

So what happened with the PC support? They came into the campaign strong, with hopes for significant gains. The Conservatives really have no one to blame but themselves. Tory made a big mistake by raising the issue of public funding for private religious schools. First, although popular with certain minority groups, the plan is very unpopular amongst the majority of Ontarians. But secondly, by raising the issue of education, people are reminded of past Conservative strategies in the realm of education. Think back to John Snobelen's 1995 remark about creating a "crisis" in education.

Sure, Tory tried to diffuse the issue by promising a free vote on funding private schools. But his backtracking does nothing more than highlight what a mistake it was to begin with. This tactic will only drive more people away from Tory.

The other mistake made by the PC's is their choice of campaign ads. Right from the start, Ontarians were subjected to the most strident negative ads targeting Dalton McGuinty. Over time, these shrill ads became more annoying than informative, and reinforced the notion that the PC's had no real plan for government other than simply to get rid of Liberals.

Like most Ontarians, I'll be casting a vote next Wednesday and eagerly watching the returns come in over the evening. And I'll be reading the commentary on Thursday. We'll see then who's left standing and who will be out in the cold.

Hans

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The Bottle Diver

Category: Science
Wed, 03 Oct 2007, 12:00

Here's a fun and easy science demonstration you can use to amuse your kids that needs just a two liter plastic pop bottle and a medicine dropper.

First, fill a tall glass with water and drop the empty medicine dropper into it. The eye dropper should float in the water. Next, completely fill the medicine dropper with water. It should now sink in the water. Now, carefully squeeze water out of the dropper until it just floats in the water. Then, squeeze out a couple more drops out of the dropper.

Now, fill the two liter pop bottle with water right up to the top and put the medicine dropper into it. A bit of water should spill out the top of the bottle. Put the cap back on the bottle and tighten it closed. You're now ready for the demonstration.

At first, the medicine dropper should float at the top of the bottle. But when you squeeze the bottle, the medicine dropper should sink. With the right amount of force, you can adjust the depth of the "diver" within the bottle.

Before reading on, try to reason out why this works.

Ready for the answer? When adjusting the amount of water in the medicine dropper, think about when it sank or floated. With a lot of water, the dropper sank, but with little water, it floated. To put it differently, with little air in the bulb, it sank. Containing a lot of air, it was buoyant and floated.

What happens when you squeeze the bottle? Do you compress the water? Or do you compress the air in the medicine dropper? With a smaller volume of air in the dropper, it becomes less buoyant and sinks.

With this story, I open a new section of my blog devoted to science.

Hans

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School Funding in the 2007 Provincial Election

Category: Politics
Mon, 01 Oct 2007, 09:43

When I was growing up, there were some people in our neighborhood who were different. Sure, they looked like the rest of us, but we just didn't associate with them. What was different about them? They were Catholic!

Even when I was in high school and came into contact with people of different religions, the kids who went to the Catholic high school were still looked down on.

Later on, of course, I came to understand that Catholicism wasn't really that different from other forms of Christianity. But by then, I had long given up on most forms of organized religion anyway.

What's my point? It's just that having separate schools for different religions fosters religious intolerance. People learn their prejudices at an early age. And when our kids are segregated on the basis of religion, they don't get a chance to meet or understand people of different faiths.

Public funding of separate religious schools has become a major issue in the current provincial election campaign. The leader of the Conservatives, John Tory, argues that providing funding to private schools is a matter of fairness. After all, public funding is provided for the Catholic school system. The problem is that we need more contact between people of different faiths, not less. There is a lot of misunderstanding between people, and it would benefit all of society if there were more points of contact between different peoples.

In the current campaign, there's only one party that advocates just one publically funded school system. Unfortunately, under the current electoral system, the Green Party is not likely to gain any seats in the provincial parliament. In my heart, I'd like to support the Greens. However, my riding (Scarborough-Guildwood) is considered a close call, and so I will probably vote strategically for the candidate most likely to defeat the PC candidate.

Hans

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