SOMA Cube

We are asked regularly about our puzzles. A visitor wanted more information about the SOMA Cube.

The puzzle you describe is called the Soma Cube. It was invented by Piet Hein, a very interesting mathematician. This Wikipedia entry scratches the surface.

We see many very reasonably priced versions of the cube on Ebay.

Once you have one, be sure you don't limit its use to making cubes, here is a link that leads to many Soma Cube puzzles.

It has been said that a person who works intensively with the pieces for two weeks won't need the blocks any more to solve puzzles. That we would like to see!

Impressions of Oppenheimer

How do Americans think about J. Robert Oppenheimer today? How do people in Los Alamos think about him?

My personal impression is that most Americans who know about him hold him in awe. I think most see him as a brilliant scientist. Fewer are aware that he served the country as an amazing administrator who came to Los Alamos on E. O. Lawrence's recommendation without a big reputation or even much experience managing. I think people who now think the atomic bombs should not have been used might feel ambivalent about Oppenheimer, but many of them still respect his scientific abilities. People also see him as a tragic victim of McCarthyism, if they know that story.

In Los Alamos he is revered. Some older people here remember him, and he enjoyed the respect and personal affection of many people at the laboratory in his day and in his later years. There are strong feelings about the security hearings, and most people here see the outcome as terribly unjust and even cruel. I don't think anyone here believes Robert Oppenheimer was ever a security threat.

If he didn't oppose it, Oppenheimer was not enthusiastic about the hydrogen bomb. He probably dragged his feet. Edward Teller was a proponent, impatient with Oppenheimer's views, a founder of Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and testified against Oppenheimer. Although he was a pretty colorful character, Teller is not fondly remembered here.  As is true with so many aspects of our history, this is a very complicated topic. To what extent Oppenheimer's communist connections played a role, vs. power struggles within the physics community and even in Congress and the military, as well as other factors that were involved, historians will never untangle the security hearings.

As to why the museum is named for Oppenheimer's successor, I will suggest two reasons.

Oppenheimer's name is all around Los Alamos. An award, a lecture series, a street, and several buildings all pay tribute to him. (Wouldn't you expect the Oppenheimer Science Museum to be found in the Oppenheimer Center?)

Norris Bradbury is credited with keeping Los Alamos Scientific (later National) Laboratory alive at a time when it is very possible the US government might have closed it. Many scientists, including Oppie, left shortly after the war to return to their university roles. Bradbury was director for 25 years, an extraordinary tenure, and was director when the original version of this museum opened. Bradbury as a person is also very fondly remembered by those who knew him.

ChemCam Question

What would happen if the ChemCam laser shot at a piece of glass?

ChemCam is a device on the Mars Science Laboratory rover, Curiosity. It consists of a powerful laser which is trained through a telescope on a mineral target, A tiny spot on the target is heated to a plasma, and flashes with wavelengths of light that give away its composition. The ChemCam telescope collects some of this light, relaying it to a fiber-optics cable to a series of spectrometers in the body of the rover. The spectrometers analyze the light and report their findings back to scientists on Earth.

We were asked this question by a student in one of our programs, and we asked our friend Roger Wiens, who is one of the co-principal investigators for ChemCam. Roger told us:

"These students have good heads on their shoulders! The laser would not spark on a piece of smooth glass. But if you roughen up the surface with sandpaper the glass would lose its transparency and you would get a spark."

We are reminded of the time we tried to roast a marshmallow in our solar furnace. The marshmallow is so white that it reflects the heat quite well. Then we tried rolling it in cocoa powder. . .

Trinitite

We are asked from time to time where one can get Trinitite, the glassy mineral caused by the test of the "Gadget" atomic device at Trinity Site on the White Sands Missile Range. For several years after the test, the material was poached from the site by the truckload. It was never officially distributed, and there is no guarantee that any glass called Trinitite is authentic without very exacting analysis well beyond this writer's understanding.
That said, we have been told that there is enough out there in circulation that it is unlikely that anyone would go to the trouble to try to make counterfeit Trinitite. As to where to buy it, we will leave that up to the resourcefulness of our readers.

Comparing Hardness of Rocks

We were asked how students can compare the hardness of different rocks, especially scoria and volcanic tuff.

To compare two different materials’ hardnesses, one approach is to try to scratch one with the other. We suspect, although we haven’t tried, that you will find the scoria scratches the tuff and not vice versa. This method is used by gemologists, who know that a rock that can be scratched by a common steel nail will be too soft to take a high polish. Steel is just about the perfect hardness to make this determination. Agate is harder than steel and polishes to a high luster, limestone is softer and remains dull no matter how long it is polished. A diamond should be able to scratch almost anything, and talc shouldn't scratch anything.

Ultimate Source Of Nuclear Energy

We have been asked during our energy program how nuclear energy fits into the mix when all of our other forms of energy derive ultimately from the sun.

The tie-in is actually pretty interesting. Most of the energy we use comes directly or indirectly from the sun, which is “burning” hydrogen created during the Big bang. Stars fuse hydrogen atoms into heavier elements only up to iron. The planets, and all the elements heavier than iron (further down the periodic table) are composed of stuff created in supernovae, dying exploding stars, that preceded the sun. Only a supernova is energetic enough to create the exotic and unstable elements up to uranium. So nuclear reactors, which run primarily on uranium, ultimately derive their energy also from stars, although not our sun.

Cross Puzzle with 4 pieces

You asked if the puzzle in TechLab with four pieces actually reassembles into one large square.

 Two small squares are easy.

The hint posted alongside this puzzle is that the square has twice the area of the cross. The only way this can be, using the same four pieces, is if the square has a hole in it with the same area as the cross. We will be the first to admit this is a sneaky solution.

In this case, the hole is actually the same shape as the cross. The drawing shows the cross pattern with one piece rotated into position as a corner of the square pattern.