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Creating an animal from a single uncut piece of paper is one of life's greatest simple pleasures. Few other activities are as rewarding in relation to their brevity and convenience as origami, with the classic crane holding the distinction of being the most widely recognized and adored creation of this art form. Yet as satisfying as folding thousands of cranes, frogs, and boats for decorative purposes is, origami has also recently made its way into engineering, proving itself to be extremely practical and astonishingly useful as well as aesthetically pleasing.
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Quantifying Quality: Violin Sound Analysis
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An exquisite violin is easily identified by the trained ear. In fact, even untrained ears can spot a good violin upon a mere glance at the price tag: the greatest instruments of seventeenth century Italian luthiers are priced in the millions, while a cheap but playable violin can be bought for less than a hundred dollars. The difference in quality is undeniable, for the perfection behind the making of a Stradivarius – deemed the greatest of all violins – is not easily attained.
In this experiment, the quantitative differences between various violins, ranging greatly in price and sound quality, was determined. For each violin, open strings were recorded and a Fourier transform was used to generate the spectrogram and determine the percent of sound in each harmonic. --CONTINUE |
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The saying “you know yourself the best” may not be true anymore, for science begs to differ.
Did you really choose to take the longer path back to class? Did you really decide to buy that cookie during lunch? Did you even choose to read this article? A recent study at Max Planck Institute reveals that we may not have as much control over our actions as we think we do. Whether you decide to drop this magazine here and never touch it again or to continue reading, your decision was made seven to eight seconds before you were consciously aware of it. As frightening as it may sound, this new discovery may reveal that the notion of freewill is a mere illusion. After years of ignorance, are we actually only doomed prisoners of our own brains? --CONTINUE |
Acetylsalicylic Acid (aka Aspirin)
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You’re studiously studying for your science test when you suddenly experience a straining headache. The throbbing pain doggedly persists for an hour, causing you to feel as if your head will split in two. Knowing that you can’t possibly continue studying like this, you grab a glass of water and down two aspirin, and just like that, the headache is gone. How that little aspirin pill can alleviate your headache all starts with what aspirin, scientifically known as acetylsalicylic acid, does to your cells. --CONTINUE |
The Value of a Good Night’s Rest
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With schedules teeming with AP classes and extracurricular activities—not to mention distractions such as the Internet, television, and video games—, many high school students find it difficult to set aside time for a good night’s rest. Students increasingly remain awake till the wee hours of the morning, sometimes even staying up all night for the sake of completing class assignments. Unfortunately, sacrificing sleep results in serious consequences. --CONTINUE |
