Falling Ice

It's been a while since I posted anything, much to my shame.  Hopefully this post marks a change in that streak.  Today I'm going to consider a very practical application of all this physics stuff.  One of my housemates parks his car on the side of the house, with the front of the car facing the house.  Living in Ithaca, NY, the weather has been the usual cold and snowy, like the rest of the northeast USA this winter. Yet, early last week, we had some unusually warm weather, in the 30s (fahrenheit).  A few days later, my housemate went out to his car, and discovered that falling chunks of ice had broken his windshield!  Now, to be clear here, I'm not talking about icicles, I'm talking about large, block-like, chunks.  My best guess is that during the warm days, snow on the roof turned into chunks of ice, and slid off the roof.  The question I'm going to try to answer today is: How far from the house could these chunks possibly land?  Put another way, what I want to know is, how far from the house would we have to park our cars to not risk broken windshields from falling ice?

Cryopreservation

I'd like to start a short series of posts on what I'm doing this summer. Like most all of the first year physics graduate students, I've found a research group at Cornell for the summer, and if everything goes well, I'll continue working with them after the summer is done. This is good for three reasons. First, I'm getting paid, so I can do things like pay rent. I'm not all about the money, but having a place to live is a big deal to me. Second, I'm getting a chance to explore a new area of research, with limited expectation of commitment on my part. Third, if everything works out, I've found the group I'll be working with the for the next 4-6 years. I'd like to spend a few posts here on The Virtuosi discussing first the physics I'm considering, and then what I actually do. Today I'm going to talk about the most exciting sounding piece of my work, cryopreservation.