Rob Landolfi: PhysLink.com Expert

  
Rob Landolfi
Science Teacher
Washington, DC

 Questions answered
to date:
43
Biography Mr. Landolfi is currently working as a Biology teacher at St. John's College in Washington, DC, and has taught Chemistry and Physics in the past. He is interested in evolution and population ecology, hockey, quantum mechanics, chess, biomechanics, and history, but not necessarily in that order. He has a BA in Biology from the University of Delaware (Go Blue Hens!) but most of his Physics studies have been independent. He is thrilled that he has found a career in which he regularly gets to grow fungus, blow things up, and launch projectiles, and explain why its cool. So far he has a zero casualty rate in his classes!

Published Answers All answers by Rob Landolfi published at PhysLink.com up to date are listed here:
  1. Do you get wetter if you run or walk in the rain?

  2. If space is a vacuum, then how do space capsule's retrorockets steer?

  3. I am thinking about building a 1 or 2 man blimp. How many cubic feet of helium is required to lift, say, 300 or 500 pounds?

  4. Why the planets are not twinkling, while the stars are?

  5. With such limited resources of his time, how did Avogadro come up with his number (the number of molecules in a mole of gas)?

  6. How can you boil a liquid without heating it? Why is this possible?

  7. What is the chaos theory?

  8. If you pour soda pop into a glass at room temperature is fizzes, but if you pour it into ice it fizzes a lot. Though carbon dioxide is more soluble in the pop at low temperature, why does it fizz more with the ice?

  9. Why is it impossible to pump water from very deep in the ground with a surface pump?

  10. Why does ice melt faster in water( at room temp.) than in air?

  11. Why do asteroids leave the asteroid belt in the first place?

  12. Why does air get colder as it expands?

  13. What are fractals?

  14. How is force related to momentum?

  15. Why is an apple pies sauce always hotter than the pastry even though they have been cooked on the same heat?

  16. What is meant by the theory that the sun is a third generation star?

  17. Will a lake freeze faster on a windy day than a calm day?

  18. What is the physics involved with breaking glass with your voice?

  19. Do all galaxies have black holes at their centers? If not, what provides the gravity to hold the galaxy together?

  20. Why do colors illuminated with moonlight lack color?

  21. According to QM, a radioactive atom will decay randomly. But, how many atoms does it take to enforce a predictable half life? And why?

  22. If dimples on a golf ball make it travel further then why don't they use dimples on aircraft?

  23. What is Boyle's law?

  24. What is meant by background radiation?

  25. Is there such a thing as a 3d fractal?

  26. Do all solids have a melting point? For example, is there a point when a tree, a piece of paper, or other carbon based solid becomes a liquid?

  27. What is the physics involved in skydiving?

  28. What is the most useful type of mathematics for physics?

  29. What are some examples of cohesion and adhesion?

  30. What causes different colors in flames?

  31. If oxygen is needed for fires to burn and hydrogen is a highly explosive gas, why does water not explode when exposed to fire?

  32. Why do most of the planets orbit the sun fairly on the same plane?

  33. If you stand at the bottom of a well and look up at the entrance is it possible to see stars in daylight?

  34. How come x-rays can escape from a black hole when visible light can not?

  35. Why the law of momentum conservation is not violated when a ball rolls down a hill and gains momentum?

  36. How can one measure the age of the universe?

  37. If most of the large galaxies have black holes at the center, why do photos show a very bright spot instead of a black spot?

  38. How do we know that the light from a distant, moving source has shifted from one part of the spectrum to another?

  39. If you burn a piece of wood in a confined space would the weight of that space change?

  40. How does gravity alter the trajectory of light?

  41. A full can and an empty can are rolled down a ramp. What happens and why?

  42. How do you find an objects resonant frequency?

  43. How can you make oil sink in water?