MindComet

Using Galaxies as a Telescope

In one of the first tests of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, scientists pointed a telescope at the sun during a solar eclipse. The goal was to measure how much the sun’s gravity deflected the light from stars.

In a manner similar to that experiment, scientists are using massive gravitational bodies in space and their effect on light as an experimental tool, with a side effect of producing beautiful images of the process.

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Posted by carneywilson on Jun. 22, 2010

Violinist Covering Mario in Real Time

While I’ve seen the Mario soundtrack covered in numerous ways, this is the first time I’ve seen it performed in real time with the game, including all of the sound effects.

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Posted by carneywilson on Jun. 18, 2010

Printing Real Objects

Tea. Earl Grey, hot.

Well, not quite. But 3D printing with plastic is getting to the level where you can buy and assemble a printer for under a grand, and it’ll sit cutely on your desk.

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Posted by carneywilson on Jun. 10, 2010

The Universe, But 13 Billion Years Ago

Split over four hundred orbits, with one million seconds of total exposure time, the Hubble Space Telescope took pictures of a tiny, tiny piece of our sky. The result? The Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

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Posted by carneywilson on Jun. 09, 2010

When Liquids Rebel

For a bit of science today, I’d like to mention non-Newtonian fluids. Normally when you stir a fluid, it doesn’t change its viscosity based on how fast you stir it. Custard stays viscous (or thick,) and water stays relatively easy to stir. This is because they’re Newtonian fluids, which means they move as Isaac Newton’s equation predicted.

More interesting fluids, though, act in strange ways.

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Posted by carneywilson on Jun. 08, 2010

The Key to Science, By Richard Feynman

In a brief Friday post about the nature of science, I would like to defer to the late Richard Feynman.

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Posted by carneywilson on Jun. 04, 2010

Creepy Robots 2.0

Following on the creepy/awesome that comes from BostonDynamics and their BigDog, I’ve compiled a few more videos of robots that fall well within the supposed uncanny valley. This is a bit of a preview of neat technology, but also a view of what robots end up being when viewed in a creepy light.

To start the list, there’s a simulation robot that engineers at Kagawa University have put together. Unfortunately the simulation isn’t perfect, and the presentation (video after the jump) is downright disturbing.

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Posted by carneywilson on Jun. 02, 2010