Leibniz immortalized

I saw this in the supermarket the other day. Could this be an unintended reference to the co-inventor of calculus, now inadvertently immortalized as a biscuit brand? 

Apparently, this is not an error. Leibniz biscuits are indeed named after Gottfried Leibniz by the Bahlsen confectionery company which makes them!

A full FAQ on the subject is available on the Bahlsen website. Here's some pertinent information translated straight from the german FAQ.

1) Company founder Hermann Bahlsen created "Leibniz Cakes" in 1891, naming it after one of the most famous inhabitants of Hanover, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). To identify foods after famous people was not uncommon at that time (eg Bismarck herring, Schiller's hair, Mozart ball). 

2) Leibniz Butter Biscuits have "52 teeth" for purely aesthetic reasons. Hermann Bahlsen found that with this number, the cookies had the best appearance. Only genuine Leibniz butter biscuits have 52 teeth. If you are puzzled as to what teeth are, go count the notches on the edges of this biscuit. 

3) On the issue of teeth, other Leibniz products have a different number. "Leibniz whole grain" and "Leibniz Landkeks" have only 38 teeth. This is due to the consistency of the dough that is slightly coarser than the type used for butter biscuits. The teeth must therefore be greater in size or they would break too easily. The "Choco Leibniz" has 48 teeth, because being covered with chocolate, the underlying cookie is slightly smaller than the normal butter biscuit version. The overlaying chocolate layer does however have 52 teeth. "Leibniz Minis" have exactly half of the teeth (26) of a butter biscuit. 

4) On the issue of the animals in the "Leibniz Zoo" series, zoo packs contain 17 different animals: rhino, turtle, sheep, owl, penguin, monkey, squirrel, rabbit, duck, camel, cat, elephant, lion, bear, dog, donkey, horse. The ratio of species per pack of "Leibniz Zoo" is not always the same for technical reasons. While the animal forms are represented in equal proportion, after baking, the cookies arrive in a single mix to be filled into packs. Thus, the number of individual animal per pack will be distributed by random chance. 

5) If you would like a "zoo" scrapbook, send a stamped 55 cents A6 envelope with your address to: Bahlsen, 30001 Hannover.

A poop joke

Heard an awesome poop joke today.

Time Dilation

Ever had your day lengthened by 4.8 hours? This was a clock that D had got for me as a gift in the US. It tells the time in binary and gets its power from a step-down AC transformer. That alone should have been warning but I brought it from the US to use in my Singapore office. Check out the video for the full deal.

Here's an example of how AC frequency can utilized by ICs for timing purposes.

http://www.intersil.com/data/an/an1342.pdf

tl;dr The 60 Hz power line frequency is often used to drive timing in US clocks. Consider this before plugging a US clock into a 50 Hz system.

Beer Bubbles

This is a video of beer bubbles generated by the IPA in my previous post. The release of the bubbles is described by Henry's Law. Once the bottle is opened, the gas pressure falls and beer is no longer in equilibrium with the vapor phase. Gas bubbles start to nucleate at sites in the glass harboring microscopic crevices which have trapped pre-existing air. Bubbles that have grown sufficiently buoyant then break off and head to the surface.

Unfortunately, my video rotator program does not seem to be functioning well so it is oriented sideways.

You will notice that the bubbles seem to start slow at the bottom but gain velocity as they rise. In fact, you can demonstrate this for yourself by freezing the video at any point and measuring the length of the bubble streaks as a surrogate for velocity. I did this for 20+ bubbles on a freeze frame and plotted the following graph.

The bubbles' velocities can probably be approximated using Stoke's velocity. However, this generalization will not take into account drag forces due to surfactants and other factors. I found this paper useful for getting a general intuition for bubble velocity physics. 

Homebrew

My colleague happens to be a well-known yeast researcher and lately, he has gotten into brewing his own beer. The results of his improvised setup are outstanding. Here are two bottles which he was generous enough to share. On the left is a darker ale and on the right is an IPA. 

I took the IPA out for a spin. Here it is poured into a glass. It is as delicious as it looks.

Results for the second darker ale will be posted later.

Fire at Pulau Bukom

Pulau Bukom is an offshore island of Singapore. Shell has a major oil refinery on this island which caught fire two days ago. Here's a view of the action from the lab.

And here is Reuter's report of the incident.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/29/us-shell-refinery-fire-idUSTRE78R2B420110929?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=71

Copters

Singapore likes to celebrate national day (Aug 9) by flying its american aircraft during the national day parade. These flew over the city during a rehearsal for the parade. 

Chinook

Blackhawk

Apache Longbow 

The F-15s were too high to be captured by my  phonecam.