Archive for October, 2010

A little physics problem

October 13, 2010

A few months ago I accidentally spotted an amusing phenomenon during my son’s bathtime. He has some plastic cups that he likes playing with in the bath, and as the water was running out, I took one of them, turned it upside-down, and pushed it down so that it was full of air and just above the plughole, surrounding it. If you want the hard version of the problem it is to work out what happened next. The easier version of the problem is to read past the fold, where I will say what happened, and then to explain it. I am hopeless at this kind of problem, so I don’t know the answer myself, and I also don’t rule out that the answer is too easy to be interesting. If that is the case, then apologies in advance.
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Online mathematics finally takes off …

October 3, 2010

… or does it?