Category: Physics

Exploring the Odd and Ingenious with Engineer’s Zen | June 25 2026, 03:38

Just a reminder that I have the Engineering Zen group on Facebook and Telegram. Recently, these topics have been covered:

– The 1956 TV remote control that had no batteries, no electronics, and not a single LED — and it worked perfectly. How? With a small hammer.

– SQLite — a database that exists in a trillion copies literally everywhere (even on Mars). It was developed by three people, originated on a military destroyer, and instead of a Code of Conduct, the developers adhere to a 1500-year-old charter.

– Eel eggs haven’t been seen for 2000 years. Aristotle brooded over this, followed by a 19-year-old Sigmund Freud, who dissected hundreds of eels, found nothing, and frustratedly left biology.

– Obelisks — a new “form of life” discovered in 2024. Not a virus, not a cell, nothing like anything else. And it lives right in your mouth. About one in ten people have it.

– Midjourney — the very company that creates images in Discord — is suddenly building a body scanner that “is better than an MRI”. You have to be scanned underwater. No, it’s not a joke.

– Light from sound. Catch a bubble in ultrasound — and it flashes. Inside, it’s 10,000 degrees for a moment. It’s assembled on a kitchen table, and physicists are still debating exactly how it emits light.

– Why memories can’t be erased by sheer willpower — and why it’s so easy to rewrite them. It also explains why so many people want to go back to the USSR.

– Why you can’t bring water on a plane — an honest engineering breakdown.

– Cicadas that have learned prime numbers to avoid getting eaten. They emerge every 13 or 17 years — and it’s a mathematically verified survival strategy.

– A Japanese mathematician who proved a great hypothesis over 500 pages in his invented language with “Hodge theatres” and “frobenoids”. Half the world believes him, the other half found a flaw. A very beautiful and very sad story.

– And for dessert — the bigger brother of a flying manhole cover in Moscow: a cast iron plate that was launched upwards at a speed of 67 km/s by a nuclear explosion in 1957 — six times faster than escape velocity.

Join us to not miss out on a lot more interesting stuff.

Also on Telegram @engineersdzen

Engineering Zen: Insights on Oil Storage, Time Illusions, and the Self-Righting 3D Object | June 20 2026, 14:50

I’d like to remind you that I have a group called “Engineering Zen” on Facebook and Telegram, which in recent days has featured content about:

1) the structure of oil storage facilities and what that lid flying over Moscow was all about

2) the “stopped clock” illusion, experienced by everyone but understood by almost no one.

3) about the 3D monostable, which always rights itself no matter how it’s placed. It was first proven mathematically, then constructed.

Join us so you don’t miss out on much more intriguing content. I am particularly concerned about Telegram — somehow 37 guests showed up, but as I understand it, they won’t keep coming by themselves, and with such a small audience, I fear I won’t have enough motivation to write regularly. Let’s at least push it to 50, then the motivation will be somewhat better. “Engineering Zen”, @engineersdzen

Exploring Ambivalence: A Review of Andy Weir’s “Project Hail Mary” | June 19 2026, 14:11

I finished reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. My feelings are mixed.

On one hand, Weir is an absolute genius of hard science fiction. It’s evident that the universe is developed down to the smallest details. The author doesn’t just make up facts; the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, space navigation — everything is based on real modern scientific concepts. The problems the main character solves are logical, and following the plot development is insanely interesting. Pure delight for the inner geek.

But on the other hand… throughout the novel, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was reading young adult or even children’s literature.

For instance… Ryland Grace, the main character, behaves not like a leading scientist stranded alone in deep space on a mission to save humanity, but like a hyperactive school teacher (which he actually was). His inner monologue is filled with childlike wonder, and instead of normal adult swearing in stressful situations, he uses amusing euphemisms. And generally, the idea that a single scientist should be able to quickly retrofit a spacecraft on the fly with a “sticks and stones” approach just to make it work is – well.. that’s something.

Too tame and kind space. All conflicts on Earth before the launch are resolved suspiciously easily thanks to the “absolute power” of project leader Eva Stratt. Her actions often look caricatured, not realistic. And when the alien Rocky appears… Their friendship develops by the canons of a classic Disney fairy tale. They instantly find a common language, they have perfect mutual understanding, zero cultural barriers, or dangerous misunderstandings. Everything is very cute, conflict-free, and “on friendship.” Adding some conflict for sharpness would have been nice. Everything always goes smoothly for the main character.

Writing style. Short, chopped sentences, very simple language, chewing over every thought, constant exclamations. The text seems specifically adapted so that a twelve-year-old could easily read it. The plot moves in circles: a problem arises => Grace in panic => Grace calculates something on paper / Rocky helps with an alloy => problem solved. And so every 30 pages. Because of this, towards the end, the sense of real danger is lost: the reader knows in advance that the author has another scientific trump card up his sleeve.

As a result, it turned out to be a cool, very scientifically accurate… comic book. A kind, optimistic fairy tale, wrapped in relatively impeccable physics and mathematics. There’s definitely a lot to praise the book for, but if you’re expecting a deep psychological drama or existential horror from fiction — this is clearly not for you.

Who read it, what did you think? Did you also catch this feeling of a “kindergarten” on a spaceship, or am I being picky?

Unraveling the Mysteries and Controversies of Curling Technology | June 15 2026, 12:52

It’s amazing that the core of curling is based on a physical anomaly that scientists have been unable to explain for 100 years. According to physics, if you spin, say, a regular glass and push it forward, friction should make it roll in the opposite direction of the spin. But the 20 kg granite curling stone defies these rules throughout its entire existence — it curves in the same direction it rotates. Either the stone leaves microscopic scratches on the ice, upon which its rear part then “jumps,” or the ice clings to it like teeth on a comb – there are many hypotheses, but clarity is nil.

There’s an interesting story in curling called “Broomgate.” In 2015, brooms with such aggressive directional fabric were released that sweepers could literally “steer” the stone like a joystick. Chaos ensued, and players from top teams (!) agreed not to use this then-legal hack out of gentlemanly honor. The federation tested 50 brooms and officially banned these “technological doping” tools. In 2024–25, “Broomgate 2.0” erupted. The controversy was not over the bristles, but the stiffness of the foam under the pad. Right during the Grand Slam of Curling (2025), top teams rebelled and signed a collective agreement to abandon these innovations mid-season. From June 2025, stiffer foams were banned — models like the BalancePlus Firm 2.0 were specifically targeted.

The photo shows curling in 1959 at Loch Leven, Kinross, Scotland.

Understanding the Tingling Sensation from a Charging Laptop | May 31 2026, 15:27

Today I learned why there’s a tingling sensation from the metallic body of, say, a MacBook when it’s charging. The effect is called electrovibration, and it arises due to parasitic capacitive coupling and the absence of grounding in the standard power supply. This seemed kind of obvious, but exactly how it works was not.

Inside the charger, there is a capacitor, which allows a safe but noticeable potential of AC current to seep into the aluminum laptop case. When you touch the cover, your body and the laptop become a sort of living capacitor, with a thin layer of aluminum and skin acting as an insulator that separates the charges.

The pulsation of current in the socket – 50-60 Hz. The electric field between the finger and the body sometimes strengthens, sometimes weakens. According to Coulomb’s Law, this causes the skin to be attracted to the metal and then released. If you simply rest your hand on the laptop, the force of this attraction is too small to notice.

It results in sensory deception – nerve endings in the finger pads, which in nature are responsible for recognizing textures, go haywire from such microscopic friction chaos. The brain is completely unable to directly recognize electrostatic microcurrents, so it chooses the most logical interpretation for itself and convinces you that it’s the metal itself that is vibrating.

Cherenkov Radiation: The Ethereal Blue Glow of Nuclear Decay | April 26 2026, 23:52

In the picture – Cherenkov radiation. This is me in 2009 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, standing in the hall with the nuclear reactor. The water in the photo is for slowing down neutrons and cooling spent fuel rods. The glow occurs when electrons are ejected from the fuel at a speed exceeding the phase velocity of light in water. Kind of like a sound barrier, but for light. The intensity of this glow can roughly indicate how “fresh” the fuel is in the pool. The brighter and denser the blue, the more active the decay processes are. Interestingly, Cherenkov radiation is the reason why there is no absolute darkness at great depths of the ocean floor.

Near-Miss at Leningrad: The Unknown Predecessor to Chernobyl | April 26 2026, 17:32

On the anniversary of Chernobyl. Those interested in this topic may not know that a similar accident could have occurred ten years earlier on the main (very first RBMK-1000 unit) Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant.

There was a nearly identical situation: one turbine in operation, reactor shutdown by emergency protection, and subsequent power escalation.

Back then, the situation was saved by the Chief Reactor Operator Mikhail

Karrask, who, acting intuitively and relying on his experience with industrial reactors, introduced into the reactor in portions

12 manual control rods

BEFORE pressing the emergency shutdown button.

A couple of years ago, Karrask passed away. This story is almost unknown outside the industry. For proof, google his obituary on Rosatom.

The technical part. The main danger of the RBMK reactors at that time was in the design of the control rods. At the bottom, they were equipped with graphite “displacers”. When the emergency shutdown button was pressed, the rods began moving down, and in the first seconds, the graphite tips did not dampen the reactor, but on the contrary, displaced the water and increased the power in the lower part of the active zone. But precisely, the instructions in case of trouble suggested pressing the emergency shutdown button. If you followed the instructions, “Chernobyl” would have happened earlier.

After the incident at the Leningrad NPP, a commission was formed. Experts (including those from the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy) pointed out the dangerous design flaws of the RBMK – the positive void coefficient of reactivity and incorrect design of the rods. Unfortunately, extensive changes to the design of all RBMK reactors were not made at that time. Only operational regulations recommendations were given, which, as history showed, were insufficient to prevent the tragedy in Chernobyl.

Space Exploration: From Pioneering Days to the ISS as a Playground | April 06 2026, 19:59

essentially, a person in space is about these days and about the days 50 years ago. The International Space Station is already kindergarten: in terms of the Earth, it is only slightly higher than airplanes fly.

When the Night Lit Up: Unraveling the Mystery of a Superbolt Storm | March 21 2026, 12:55

We had a thunderstorm last night. The whole county is buzzing because everyone thinks that something exploded just before midnight. Several posts in a row on social media. In short, it was thunder. But a bit more rare than usual. Caused by a 401 kA lightning, dubbed the Wild House Shaker. A typical lightning strike is 30 kA. If the numbers are to be believed, 401 kA is really damn a lot. They will likely say we haven’t had such lightning here for decades.

Attaching an interesting map.

The points on the map show superbolts — lightning strikes with an energy of no less than 1M J. Red points — particularly powerful superbolts with an energy of more than 2M J. That is, superbolts mostly occur in the northeastern part of the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean Sea, and less frequently — in the Andes, off the coast of Japan, and near South Africa.

this is what the page from which I took the map says (translation):

“New work shows that superbolts most often occur over the Mediterranean Sea, the northeastern Atlantic, and over the Andes, as well as in smaller amounts to the east of Japan, in tropical oceans, and near the southern tip of Africa. Unlike regular lightning, superbolts often strike over water.

“Ninety percent of lightning occurs over land,” said Holzworth (that’s the main guy on lightning at the University of Washington).

“But superbolts mostly arise over water, right up to the coastline. For example, in the northeastern Atlantic, the distribution maps of superbolts clearly show the outlines of the coasts of Spain and England.”

“The average energy of a discharge over water is higher than over land—that we knew,” he said. “But we did not expect such a stark difference.”

The season for superbolts also does not match the usual patterns of lightning. Regular lightning most often occurs in the summer—the three main so-called “lightning chimneys” coincide with summer thunderstorms over America, Africa south of the Sahara, and Southeast Asia. However, superbolts, which are more common in the Northern Hemisphere, occur in both hemispheres from November to February.

The reason for such a distribution remains a mystery. In some years, there are significantly more superbolts than in others: the end of 2013 was record-breaking, and the end of 2014 was the second largest, while in other years such events were much less frequent.

“We speculate that this may be related to sunspots or cosmic rays, but we will leave that for future research,” said Holzworth.

“For now, we are just demonstrating that there is a previously unknown pattern.”

Evolution of Understanding: Brain as a Predictive Model | March 18 2026, 13:29

An interesting philosophical thought came to my mind. What if evolution doesn’t exist in us (not in biological life), but in our system of understanding the laws of the world 🙂 That is, the system of understanding the laws of the world adapts itself so that everything more or less matches up. That is, the brain constructs an internal hallucination and constantly suppresses it in order to minimize the error of prediction. And there’s a big question — does our understanding system strive for truth (absolute correspondence to the world) or just for comfort (so that the picture in the head does not fall apart)?

With this approach, there’s a problem that if you don’t look into the future, then at each iteration, the understanding system adjusts its model so that the prediction works, but simultaneously creates problems for the next iteration, because it has to account for them already. As a result, this layered pie accumulates contradictions and constraints to such an extent that each subsequent theory becomes more and more complex and accreted with a multitude of unexplainable gaps. Dark matter, black hole radiation, gravitational waves, and so forth appear to somehow stretch the owl to fit the globe.

But yes, this is related to the question of whether mathematics was discovered or invented.