Physics Basics Series
- Basics of Classical Mechanics.
- Basics of Quantum Mechanics.
- Basics of Electrodynamics.
- Basics of Optics.
- Basics of Mathematical Tools for Physics.
- Basics of Plasma Physics.
- Basics of Solid State Physics.
Troy Stark's Science & Society Opinion Blog
Mind Mangling Puzzles
People love the challenge of a tough puzzle. Very few things are as satisfying as the feeling of accomplishment you get when you figure out a good puzzle. Well, maybe when you solve a really big real world problem or develop a new technology or even make a whole field of study or industry obsolete by creating a disruptive new technology, those are good too, but on this page we'll just stick to fairly tough puzzles. Both fascinating and frustrating, puzzles sharpen the mind and entertain the brain. Here, you will find Mental challenges and brain benders that at least appear solvable.
Here, you'll find some of the mind boggling puzzles that have tortured us here at Stark Effects, and we're happy to share them.
When credit for a puzzle is known, it is given. Unfortunately, we don't always know the sources for our puzzles and we apologize for not having a proper reference for each.
Click here to escape these tormenting puzzles and return to the STARKFX home page.
Length of a Nested Rectangle
In this puzzle, you're given the width of rectangle and all you have to do is figure out the length of that rectangle that will fit inside another rectangle of known size so that all of the corners of your rectangle will touch the sides of the given rectangle.
This little puzzle was rather fun to figure out! Given the dimensions of the outside rectangle A × B, and the width, A > B W , of the inside rectangle, find the length, L , of the inside rectangle
This is presented in *.pdf format, so you will need Adobe Reader to view it.
2. How Many Faces. This is a fun exercise in mental spatial manipulations. Can you visualize combinations of solid objects?
3. Caltrops In this little puzzle, you're going to figure out an ancient secret.
Quick Science & Math References
- Our Solar System.
- Earth Facts.
- The Metric System.
- Trigonometric Identities.
- Vector & Tensor Identities.
- Explicit Forms of Vector Operators
- Light & Electromagnetic Spectrum.
- Common Laser Wavelengths.
- Human Physiology Facts.
- Human History Timeline
- Geologic Timeline
- Cambrian Explosion
- Life on Earth Timeline
- ASCII Codes and HTML Display Codes
- Thousands of HTML Symbol Codes
- HTML Symbol Codes for Greek Letters
- The Best Way to put Equations on your Web Page
Physics Basics Series
- Basics of Classical Mechanics.
- Basics of Quantum Mechanics.
- Basics of Electrodynamics.
- Basics of Optics.
- Basics of Mathematical Tools for Physics.
- Basics of Plasma Physics.
- Basics of Solid State Physics.
Math Basics Series
- Numbers
- Arithmetic
- Algebra
- Geometry
- Analysis
Technology Basics Series
- Basics of Remote Sensing.
- Basics of Digital Signal Processing.
- Critical Electronic Circuits
- Infrared Imaging Basics
Knowledge Branches
- Information Theory
- How Reading Works in the Brain
- Psychology of Learning
- Logic
WORK IN PROGRESS
- What is the Stark Effect?
- The Chemistry of Love &/or Addiction
- Critical Thinking: How to question what you see, read or hear.
- Aristotle's Prior Analytics - the birth of Logic.
- Optical Solutions, lenses that solve problems
- Fractals
- PTC - Photon Transfer Curve or Mean Variance Analysis
- 3-D Noise
- Laser Primer
- Rail Guns
- Special Relativity
- Radar Technology
- Acousto-optic Cells
- Harmonic Generation for Laser Frequency Doubling (SHG) and Tripling -using non-linear crystals.
- Measurement: Accuracy & Precision.
- Things you should know about computer modeling of physical phenomena!
- Giant Magneto-resistance
- Peltier Cooling
- Pyro-Electric Detectors
- Piezo-Electric Crystals
- Laser Speckle
- FFT and DFT the fast fourier transform and the discrete fourier transform
- Fabry Perot Etalon
- The Hydrogen Atom.
- PCA (Principal Component Analysis)
- Energy per mass in fuels such as Hydrogen, Gasoline, Kerosene, HMX etc...
- Nobel prize winning work on the CCD
- How does a CCD work and what are the normal characteristics of a CCD
- Nobel Prize Winning work on Giant Magneto-resistance
- FROG -frequency resolved optical gating
- Optical Wavefront Sensing
- THz imaging and time-domain spectroscopy
- Camera Calibration
- Laser Designators
- Resampling