Jugend Forscht

[DarkReality]

Meep.

In any case. Coming up is a contest which concentrates on teenagers doing their own experiments to answer questions, or at least begin to answer questions, by actively doing something other than simply reading, hence "Jugend Forscht" (=the youth researches). Sadly, this contest is only nationwide, otherwise I'd have tried to recruit a nifty team here.

Nonetheless, I plan on participating anyway. My problem? I can't think of a project idea. At all. At least not right now. So I figured I'd ask for some input here, as it's even a chance for a lucky someone to have a question answered.

My prefered "subjects" are physics and Mathematics/Computers Tech/IT

A few examples from last year, so that you know what kind of projects these are:
Out of the mathematics region:
- Digital Signatures which work universally, even with chip cards (sounds like he concentrated on encryption techniques)
- A navigational system of parking garages
- A robot that plays tic tac toe and can even learn new tactics. Supposedly it's unbeaten.
- research on isogonal points (I have no idea what that would amount to, but someone did it anyway >_>)

Out of the physics region:
- Putting crystals under mechanical pressure causes electricity. One kid decided to find out why and did it.
- An apparatus which can find out what the air in a certain room is composed of and even how much of a certain component is in it.
- A solar collector which can transform light into electrical energy as well as heat, something that conventional solar cells apparently can't do.
- One group analyzed

There are some more complicated ones, my problem lies in translating the terms >_<

Anyway, you can see that the problems should be rather specific, which is part of my problem. One idea I already had would be an attempt to solve the travelling salesman problem (anyone who doesn't know it, PM me, I'll explain, but that'll take too long here), but that could prove to be a bit too difficult. Another region that would interest me is the physical aspect behind music (waves, interaction of waves, and so on)

Any ideas are welcome. Thank you.

[MercuryLime]

So, your supposed to come up with an idea about a... fancy science project? Or a research project? I don't really get what the goal is. Or the travelling salesman thing.

But you could try to prove theologically how time space and time are relative and the speed of light is absolute. >_>

[DarkReality]

But you could try to prove theologically how time space and time are relative and the speed of light is absolute

Sure, I could. But right now, I have no idea how I prove that experimentally :-)

It's pretty much a research project. Something so specific that it really hasn't been worked on all that often. If at all.

The travelling salesman problem is as follows: you're given a random number of dots in a coordinate system. You have to go to all dots, never going to the same dot twice (paths can cross though). The trick: you have to pick the shortest possible route. It's possible to figure out with a computer if you have 5 to 9 dots, depending on how fast your computer is, but once you get to 15 dots, you'd have to wait a long time.

[MercuryLime]

And you would research how to... Figure it out quicker? And is it a 2d or 3d coordinate system?

I'm real good with that sort of stuff... Probably could beat anycomputer 10 megahertz or less. :D

[Diamond187]

I can think of a few things (naturally). I'd suggest doing something electricity related, since it's a nice halfway between the math, computers and physics. As for specifics, you might try looking into where "noise" interferance comes from and how to minimize it in things like circuit boards. Another thing which could be very interesting to look into, might be a relationship between capacitance and resistance. You could try looking at standard resistors and capacitors and trying to do minute measurements of their capacitance and resistance, and see if you can find a pattern. It'd require pretty precise instruments though.

If you're interested in wave mechanics you could make up some interesting demonstrations with resonance. You could try and find the natural frequency of a block of concrete and then try to crack it with just sound (that'd be awesome).

If you don't like any of those just say so and I'll think of some other stuff.

[MercuryLime]

That reminded me: You could do more research about how photons can be thought of both as waves and as particles.

Or create a more efficient fuel cell.

Or turn a few atoms into a bunch of energy. :P

[Diamond187]

Now that I would love to see: "German wiz-kid invents mass to energy converter, blows up science convention"

[DarkReality]

"Sadly, both inventor and all records of his invention were lost in the explosion".

Now if that wouldn't be a giant "D'oh!"

But the noise idea is rather intriguing. What would interest me is exactly how and why certain types of music affect the brain. An interesting experiment was done with mice or rats and how music influences the time they need to find out of a maze. Under the influence of Mozart, I believe they beat their time by 2 minutes or so, and under the influence of heavy metal, they took more than 20 minutes longer, despite having run through the maze once.

But then there's the problem of getting a brain and artificially stimulating it. I dunno how happy they'd be if I started stealing brains from morgues. Who knows if noise even has an effect on metal wires.

[Diamond187]

Hey, there ya go. You could try converting the sound oscillations of music into an AC current. If you could find some way to do that, I would be genuinely impressed. I think it could be done, too.

[DarkReality]

... well, wouldn't you just have to record the music with a microphone o.O Or what do you mean with converting music to an AC current?

[Diamond187]

Well, crap, I hadn't thought of those things...

Iunno, I figured you could try jury rigging something to a light bulb and seeing if you could make it flicker with your voice.

[DarkReality]

That would be cool >_< Just for the sake of having done it. Sort of a "light on" "light off" idea

[Diamond187]

Plus you could try screaming at it to see if you could burn out the light bulb.