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50 questions in the Category: mathematical sciences.

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1: Why in nature, do most flowers have a Fibonacci number of petals?
2: When you find the number close to the area of a circle, where you keep putting more and more sided shapes on the inside and outside of the circle, can you just do that with triangles and find the average of the two numbers and get the area of the circle?
3: I don't understand how should I represent a single sinusoidal form like AC voltage (or) current into sum of two sinusoidal forms.. like r[cos(x) + j sin(x)]. I am not able to visualize it properly. I understand binomial expansion of e to the power jx, sin x, and cos x. I understand the rectangular representation of complex number and involvement of sin and cos there. But how to represent a sinusoidal wave as a complex number? Any other field uses complex number to represent a physical quantity?
4: Consider if it is possible to store information in a linear system?
5: Why are bubbles round?
6: What are the instruments that meteorologists use on site in order to predict and track hurricanes?
7: What is a quantity completely described by its magnitude.
8: Since the exact location of an electron can not be known since the electron is constantly in motion is it possible to tell the direction the electron is moving? Is that direction known theoretically or actually?
9:

Given an Ostrich egg with known density, what is its age?
Here is the data file:
click here to see

10:

How can I determine the magnitude of the vertical (“up”) force that the sphere exerts on the lid, given the radius of the cone, its tangential velocity, and the mass of the sphere (s) (and of course, from that information, the centripetal acceleration experienced by the sphere)?

see figure

I have done the following calculations (shown below) to determine the magnitude of the vertical force, with the help of a professor from school. We made a few assumptions about the rotating sphere in order to simplify the problem, but overall I think the calculations should still approximate a real life situation. I would like to make sure that we have not made any errors, however. Would you guys mind looking at it and making sure our calculations are correct?

Thank you!

∑ FY = (– m*g) – N2M + (N*sinθ) = 0
∑ FX = (N*cosθ) = m*(v2/r)
N2 = (m*g) – (N*sinθ)
(N*cosθ) = (m*v2)/r
N = (m*v2)/(r*cosθ)
N2 = (m*g) – ( ((m*v2)/ (r*cosθ))*sinθ )
N2 = (m*g) – ( ((m*v2)/r) *tanθ)
N2 = m*(g – ((v2/r) *tanθ) )

“Up” Force = N2 = m*(g – ((v2/r)*tanθ) )
Where v equals the tangential velocity of the rotating cone.


11: How is that 1 kg is equal to one Newton and how can I find it?
12: If a bus with passengers is moving an amount of CO2 released by the vehicle itself as well as by the passengers, is this amount of CO2 greater or smaller than the CO2 released only by the passengers if they were riding their bikes?
13: How advanced is the world in the development of artificial intelligence?
14: Why does hot air rise?
15: What is meant by Morse Code?
16: I have tried to calculate the moon's gravity at 100,000 km distance from its surface by using the inverse square law, but I get confusing results. Please help me.
17: How do we know the distance that a star is from earth? How is it calculated? Also how do we know how hot stars are? And how do we know that there is plasma on them?
18: How do we measure the radius of other planets? Thanks.
19: Does a basketball go higher or a volleyball?When you throw a basketball or a volleyball ball which one takes more distance?
20: How "Avogadro constant" was invented and how scientists calculated it for the first time?
21: How can we locate earthquakes?
22: I want to be a scientist, but Maths is hard for me. Is there any science not using complex Maths like Algebra and Geometry?
23: Is there anyway to improve your Maths result and being great in Science subject?
24: Can you explain to me what an independent variable is?
25: There is an article on your site about the gravitational pull of the planets upon each other. My question is what happens when the earth passes through the gravitational field between the sun and another big planet such as Jupiter or Saturn. So there would be some gravity between the earth and Jupiter, but there would also be gravity between the sun and Jupiter and the earth would be passing through this field. Can this be measured? What happens? Casey the Curious.
26: Why do crystals form in water? What do you do in your lab with others? Me and my dad are interested in what you do.
27: Why, if two wrongs don't make a right, do two negatives make a positive in mathematics?
28: Why is any nonzero number raised to the power of zero equal to one?
29: What is a Planck unit?
30: I wonder why there are more boys than girls in different parts of the world?
31: How do you find the right formula in any problem?
32: What is an Independent variable?
33: Why is that most of mathematicians are also good philosophers? Is Philosophy the mother of all sciences or is it mathematics?
34: What is the scope to unify all the four fundamental force of nature through string theory?
35: What do negative and positive numbers mean on a magnitude scale?
36: Why 2 raise to power 0 is 1?
37: If the 10 dimensions of string theory are correct, would time travel theoretically be possible because of the 5th-10th dimensions? If so, what means of transportation could we use?
38: What is the independent variable and dependent variable for weather?
39: If it took 3 days for the Apollo astronauts to travel to the Moon, what was their average speed in units of km per hour, km per second and miles per hour?
40: How many moles would 6.022•1022 molecules of water represent?
41: Can you explain to me what a material's scientist does?
42: Why does .1 to power .1 starts going smaller, then turns and heads towards 1 when it gets like .001 to the power .001 and so on, logic would be that it should be smaller to infinity not back to 1. Can you explain why?
43: Can you prove that 0/0=1?
44: I would like to know what is it a fractal and how do they form in nature. Thank you for your help.
45: Are quantum computers going to be programmed in the same way as normal computers of today?
46: Is the graviton real or just a theory? What evidence do you have?
47: What separates humans from other life forms? Is it one feature, or is it multiple?
48: How do physicists change ideas into mathematical formulas?
49: How would a penrose triangle look to 2d people? Are there shapes in 3d that would be impossible in 4d?
50: How are imaginary numbers useful in the real world?
University of California, Santa Barbara Materials Research Laboratory National Science Foundation
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