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April 10, 2003

Traffic waves
Posted by Jess in Tech Talk

Matt and I both love science, and especially love when science fundamentals show up in everyday life.

(I gasped in amazement one night when Matt showed me how I could bounce the remote control signal off the wall behind me and turn off the TV. We spent the rest of the night creating complex setups with mirrors and such in an effort to turn off the TV from three rooms away.)

William Beaty, over at Science Hobbyist has created a really, really neat site describing Traffic Waves.

He discusses the dynamics of traffic, and what causes it. Have you ever noticed how you can be in a traffic jam, then all of a sudden you get to the end and cars start speeding up, with nary an accident to be seen or found? What caused the jam in the first place?

If you continue to Page 2, he goes on to share traffic experiments you can do in your own commuter boredom. He actually single-handedly slowly got rid of an entire traffic jam one day. As we drive standards, it may be worth trying one of these days!

Such amazing stuff. Kinda makes you want to go out and find random things to try. I bet you'd never guess that when I was a kid I was incredibly fascinated with the ol' thumb-being-cut-off-from-the-finger trick.

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