![jtotheizzoe:
matthen:
The 100 nearest stars, with the Sun in the middle. Colours are correct, when mathematica has data on the star’s temperature. Can you spot any constellations? [code]
Very, very cool.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ly2ln4GTwh1qfg7o3o1_400.gif)
The 100 nearest stars, with the Sun in the middle. Colours are correct, when mathematica has data on the star’s temperature. Can you spot any constellations? [code]
Very, very cool.
The Future of Context: Mobile Reading from Google to Flipboard to FLUD
By Tim Carmody, wired.comReading is changing. And arguably, even more than e-readers, tablets, or “readers’ tablets,” smartphones are changing it.
This week kicked off with the release of Flipboard for iPhone and the clever adaptation of its “social magazine”…
The Future of Context: Mobile Reading from Google to Flipboard to FLUD | Epicenter | Wired.com http://m.wired.com/epicenter/2011/12/google-to-flipboard-to-flud/
Timelines: time travel in popular film and tv. So many. Visualized!
I’m really enjoying the opportunities provided by the “ultra-paradoxes”.
Commence your lamentations on the exclusion of Dr. Who (that would take its own full-screen viz, methinks).
(via Information is Beautiful)
(via jtotheizzoe)
Diamonds Linked in Quantum States
Quantum entanglement, the spooky ability of separate particles to share quantum states, is accepted fact. Usually though, the entangled bits are so small or cold we needn’t loose sleep over the weirdness. That’s changed. English physicists report today in Science
If this video doesn’t make your jaw drop … you don’t have a jaw.
Behold: Quantum Levitation!
I have to admit, I was flabbergasted by this one. I mean, that means of motion is just so unnatural that it seems fake. But it isn’t fake. So how does it work?
Physics!
What you start with is an inert disc, in this case a crystal sapphire wafer. That wafer is then coated with a superconductor called yttrium barium copper oxide. When superconductors get very cold (like liquid nitrogen cold) they conduct electricity with no loss of energy, which normal conducting materials like copper can’t do.
Superconductors hate magnetic fields (when cold enough), and normally would just repel the magnetic force and float in a wobbly fashion. But because the superconductor is so thin in this case, tiny imperfections allow some magnetic forces through. These little magnetic channels are called flux tubes:
The flux tubes cause the magnetic field to be “locked” in all three dimensions, which is why the disk remains in whatever position it starts in, levitating around the magnets.
Of course, I am a biologist, not a physicist. For more, check out here or here.
Supercold, superconducting hoverboards … HERE WE COME!
(by ASTCvideos)
(via jtotheizzoe)
