Funny science mysteries (part 4)

Taking photos of the entire elementary school class is always a challenge, because normally there will be half of the kids looking like they are sleeping, with their faces forever dreaming. How to take group photos without anyone closing their eyes?

Frustrated with the countless portraits I was eyeing in the photos, Nic Svenson, a media officer at CSIRO (Australian National Science Institute), enlisted the help of physicist Piers Barnes to develop a Math formulas, in order to calculate the number of shots, take a group of people to get a picture without anyone closing their eyes.

Anniversary photos will be funny if someone closes their eyes.(Photo: Popular Science)

Barnes calculated the number of images to be taken as 1 / (1 - xt) n, where:

- (x) is the average number of winks per person per second.
- (t) is the speed of the camera shutter plus the average blink time.
- (n) is the number of people in the group.

When taking photos, you just need to insert the recipe and produce the results.

Since most photographers are unable to immediately perform complex algebra in their heads, Barnes chose a more easy-to-find formula to find out the number of shots to take for a group of fewer than 20: In light conditions Good morning, divide that number into 3; in dark conditions, divide that number into 2.

With these efforts, Barnes and Svenson won the 2006 Ig Nobel Prize - an annual award for useless scientific research - in mathematics. Although this algorithm does not win a real Nobel Prize, you can actually use it.

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What is the scariest sound? A dentist's persistent drilling sound? How does the violin sound to the toddler? All is not the most disgusting sound, according to a British researcher.

The team, led by acoustic engineer Trevor Cox from Salford University, downloaded 34 types of sound on the sound101.org website and asked listeners to rate each sound on a scale of 1 (not bad). to 6 (rambling - in - ear - disgusting).

With over 1.6 million votes, the right answer for all age groups and cultures: Nothing is worse than the sound of someone vomiting.

Why do people hate it so much?"If someone is coughing or vomiting, subconsciously say that the person is sick, and so we should stay away - that is a survival mechanism , " Cox said.

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Funny science mysteries (part 1)
Funny science mysteries (part 2)
Funny science mysteries (part 3)

T. An