A4_5 As the crow flies or as the mole digs

It is a well-known fact the shortest path to follow is that of a straight line. This paper takes that concept to the extreme and considers the possibility that we could construct a straight tunnel from one place on the earth to another and looks at the reduction in transport time we could expect from such a transportation system. It is calculated that the travel time to connect any two points on the earth via a straight tunnel through the earth is only dependant on the density of the earth and this travel time is calculated to be 42.2minutes

A4_9 Water-Propelled Jetpacks

Theoretically it would be possible to create a jetpack that used water as a primary propulsion method. This paper looks at the physics behind such a proposition, by deriving a relationship between the mass of the water required m and the time spent airborne t. The masses of water involved are analysed for practicability, and it is found that 99.0 kg of water is required per second of flight, which is concluded to be an unfeasibly large amount

A4_10 Electron beams cracking hydrocarbons

This article looks at using a scanning electron microscope, or SEM, to break apart (or ‘crack’) hydrocarbonchains for the purposes of creating carbon structures which are tens of micrometres in diameter. It wasfound that the energetics of the electron beam along were not sufficient to characterise this crackingprocess

A4_14 Which Lottery Ticket

This paper looks at the ratio of prize amount won to chance of winning that is present in the different variants of a drawn lottery game. The Lottery, and it's variants, run by the UK's Camelot Group are analysed to see if all the games have a similar relationship linking the amount won to the chance of winning that amount. It is found that all the games have a very similar relationship governing the chance of winning and the prize payed out

A4_16 Set Phasers to stun

This article considers the possibility of creating a ’stun ray’ style weapon similar in concept to the phaserused in Star Trek when on a setting to stun its target. It is found that in order to create such an energybased stun weapon which was effective over a similar range to that of the phaser which did not simplykill the target should be technologically possible

A4_3 How Heroic is a Hero?

The d20 roleplaying system describes the average statistic for a heroic character as ‘12 or 13’. Generating a character’s statistics is achieved by rolling four six-sided dice (4d6) and discarding the lowest value. The distribution of statistics that are generated by this method is illustrated. A comparison to the distribution of statistics generated by rolling three six-sided dice (3d6) is made, and the quoted average is confirmed to be accurate

A4_6 The Penny Drops

A British 1p coin is dropped from a great height. Its terminal velocity is calculated, alongside the force (and subsequently pressure) it would exert upon a surface on landing. The value is compared to the tensile strength of normal human skin in order to examine the effects it might have if it landed on a person, and is found not to be high enough to break the skin

A4_11 Thunderbirds Are Go!

Thunderbird 5, the space station belonging to International Rescue, is a secret that only the members of that organisation know about. As such, this paper investigates whether the station could have an apparent magnitude that is too faint for the naked human eye to discern from Earth. The luminosity of Thunderbird 5 is calculated using this assumed value, and a value for the implied albedo of Thunderbird 5 is found by comparison with the International Space Station. The albedo that is found is compared with the albedo of Comet 19P/Borrelly to examine its feasibility. The albedo required for Thunderbird 5 to be invisible from Earth is found to be impractically low and as such it is concluded that Thunderbird 5 would be visible from Earth

A4_4 Magnetic field alignments for nuclear fusion

This article considers two different configurations of magnetic field that could be used for magnetically confined nuclear fusion and considers whether using magnetic pressure to confine the plasma would allow a magnetic field of reasonable strength to be used. It was found that a feasible magnetic field strength (0.18 T) would be required to constrain the particles with an average energy, but it leaves the calculation regarding more energetic particles for further work