From Scientific American’s section called “Ask the Experts”

Does temperature affect the sound of a musical instrument?

Chris Rogers, a professor of mechanical engineering at Tufts University, and Jesse Jones, a musical instrument engineer, explain.

Temperature can affect the sound of an instrument in a variety of ways, which are different for each instrument. It also influences the abilities of a player. In the case of the violin, for example, warmer weather changes the amount of friction between the bow and the strings, changing the way the bow pulls on each string. Warm weather also tends to expand instruments…

Read the rest of this article here

My web site has been restored. Yeah! Apparently there was a hardware failure on the server and the techies at my webhost had to go restore all accounts manually, one-by-one. I thought it’d be easier to ask tech support to restore it to whatever state it was in on Friday, April 20th, but it looks like the best they could do was the 18th or 19th.

Any changes between about April 18th or 19th and April 26th are gone forever. This includes posts to my blog and any emails sent to me @PlanetLanham.com. Emails sent to my @CobbK12.org address are unaffected.

I believe there were only two posts lost on my blog from before the server crash. One bonus question each for physics & chemistry. I gave out the physics bonus on paper and it’s already been turned in. Yes, those questions will appear on today’s test, but since you had them printed and I reposted the question the other day (which meant it was on my blog for a few days) I will not post it again. The chemistry bonus was lost, but I’ll post another one later. The only other posts lost were about the server crashing. Now that everything is (fairly) back to normal there is no need to repost those. I’ve asked tech support to recover posts from the 18th-20th, but I’m not sure if it will happen.

The password function isn’t working on the Documents and Downloads Folder so I turned it off. As soon as it’s working again I’ll turn it back on and you’ll have to login to that folder again.

Thanks for your patience.

In today’s internet labs, you are asked to go to several web sites. You can either type them, or click below.

• http://id.mind.net/~zona/mstm/physics/waves/waves.html
• http://www.gmi.edu/~drussell/Demos/waves/wavemotion.html
• http://www.gmi.edu/~drussell/Demos/doppler/doppler.html

What would it be like if you could travel at (or near) the speed of light?

Here is a fun page answering this question. It has lots of other links too. Try the one that lets you explore the universe at your favorite speed.

I hope you enjoyed your time off this week! Maybe you went to the beach?

I know I enjoyed my spring break. I spent lots of time sitting out on the deck during cool evenings, listening to the seagulls, the smell of the ocean…

I know we just had a cold snap, but the high temperatures on my spring break didn’t reach the lows here at home!

See you tomorrow!