Posts 36–40 of 55

Researchers Identify the Cause of Stop-and-Go Traffic

When I commuted to Tysons from DC, I would have lots of time stuck in stop-and-go traffic to consider the reasons and causes for traffic slowdowns. It seemed that often, we’d all be slowing down and then speeding up again for no reason. I always speculated that sudden braking could cause a wave of slowdowns that would propagate backwards for hours/miles, leading to the annoying slow-down-speed-up cycle.

A team of Japanese researchers recently created an experiment to show that the effect of breaking can easily create traffic jams. It’s all just physics. Their experiment shows that when the density of cars on the road passes a certain threshold, traffic jams will be caused simply by the multi-particle interactions of the system. In layman’s terms, drivers inconsistently hitting their breaks will cause a wave of stop-and-go backups behind them.

Our Neighborhood Wins

Online real estate company Redfin recently listed its hottest neighborhoods in metropolitan areas across the country. In addition to D.C.’s Petworth and Rockville’s Fallsmead, the list included our neighborhood, Pimmit Hills.

Eli and Isaac Turn My Kneeling Chair Into a Fun Scooter for Two

I got a kneeling chair as a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law. It’s something I’ve wanted for a while for work since normal office chairs hurt my back after a while.

I didn’t expect, however, for the kids to love it so much. After much fighting over the chair, the kids finally found a way they could both enjoy it.

Common Physics Misconceptions Explained in 2 Minutes

I went to a pretty good high school (cough, IB, cough) and I had a pretty great physics teacher. Yet we never went over anything like this video in our physics class. And it’s too bad because I think it would have really made physics that much more interesting.

Assume Cars Won't Stop

Our kids love going for walks in the neighborhood. We live in a nice, safe neighborhood with lots of streets but also lots of sidewalks. The kids will ride their trikes or we will push them in the stroller. It’s fun for the whole family. However there’s one thing that’s really starting to bug me, and it’s not what I would have expected: overly polite drivers.

I’ve been trying to teach Eli about looking both ways before crossing the street. When we get to an intersection, we stop and I ask Eli to look both ways for cars. If there are any cars coming, he knows to wait because he “doesn’t want to get squished.” But more and more we run into the situation where the oncoming driver, in some misguided attempt to be polite, stops to let us cross and refuses to go until we cross.

Just stopping, in itself, can be forgiven. But almost every time this happens, the scene quickly gets ridiculous: I motion them to drive on by waving them past, and they wave at me to cross, and I wave at them to say “No really, you go on”, and they stubbornly refuse, so on and so on. It would be comical if it wasn’t so ridiculous.