Arachnophilia: La Princesse in Liverpool

Posted Wed, 02/25/2009 - 16:56 by Nick Winterhalter
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Photo by Peter Carr

"As part of Liverpool's Capital of Culture year, the French group La Machine were commissioned to create a large piece of street theatre, on the scale of their earlier work, the Sultan's Elephant. Many were expecting to see something using the iconic Liverbirds, the symbol of the city but instead we got a spider.

One of the best photos sets of the La Princesse event I've seen yet.

Via Boston Globe

Geodynamo: Building a Test Planet

Posted Thu, 01/15/2009 - 19:16 by Nick Winterhalter
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(Click for video)

Researchers at the University of Maryland have constructed a 30-ton sphere that spins at more than 90 mph to generate magnetic fields. The 10-ft.-dia. sphere is filled with 13.5 tons of liquid sodium to mimic the Earth’s liquid-iron center core. A 3.3-ft.- dia. stainless-steel sphere inside the larger one counterrotates to approximate the motion of the planet’s solid iron inner core. The action of Earth’s inner liquid produces a magnetic field that makes compasses work, deflects harmful cosmic rays and protects the planet from solar wind. The field reverses every couple of hundred thousand years. By using a model instead of a computer simulation, scientists hope to determine how these reversals occur and predict the next one.

Via Popular Mechanics

Solargraph

Posted Thu, 01/15/2009 - 11:13 by Nick Winterhalter

If every picture tells a story, this one might make a novel. The six month long exposure compresses the time from December 17, 2007 to June 21, 2008 into a single point of view. Dubbed a solargraph, the remarkable image was recorded with a simple pinhole camera made from a drink can lined with a piece of photographic paper. The Clifton Suspension Bridge over the Avon River Gorge in Bristol, UK emerges from the foreground, but rising and setting each day the Sun arcs overhead, tracing a glowing path through the sky. Cloud cover causes dark gaps in the daily Sun trails. In December, the Sun trails begin lower down and are short, corresponding to a time near the northern hemisphere's winter solstice date. They grow longer and climb higher in the sky as the June 21st summer solstice approaches.

Via Astronomy Picture of the Day
Photo by Justin Quinnell

WWII Torpedo Data Computer

Posted Mon, 10/20/2008 - 18:14 by Nick Winterhalter
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The TDC was unique in World War II. It was the computational part of the first submerged integrated fire control system that could track a target and continuously aim torpedoes by setting their gyro angles. The TDC Mark III gave the U.S. fleet submarine the ability to fire torpedoes without first estimating a future firing position, changing the ship's course, or steering to that position. Instead of hoping that nothing in the setup changed, a fleet submarine with the TDC could fire at the target when the captain judged the probability of making hits to be optimal.

From an article by Terry Lindell

Predicting the Existence of Neptune

Posted Tue, 09/23/2008 - 11:25 by Nick Winterhalter
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Neptune and Triton — Image credit: NASA/JPL

1846: German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle, knowing exactly where to look, confirms the existence of an eighth planet in the solar system, Neptune.

Galle was not the first astronomer to see Neptune -- Galileo, puzzled by the changing position of what he thought was a fixed star, had sketched the movement in 1613 but never published his findings. Others had seen it, too, but Galle, working at the Berlin Observatory, was the first to observe Neptune while understanding exactly what he was looking at.

By the time Galle fixed his gaze upon Neptune, the existence of a planet beyond Uranus was widely predicted and its position had been intensely calculated. In fact, other astronomers were quarreling over who owned the priority of discovery.

Link to Wired article by Tony Long