You know what "galaxy" means in Latin Greek, don’t you?
Yeah, it’s Saturn, not the Milky Way, but still. That is made of awesome. I want to go to that coffee shop!
Via Reddit.
Archive for the ‘Cool stuff’ Category
Gorgeous 3D Mandelbrot sets!
Check. This. Out.
You might think that’s an alien spore, or a crystal of some kind. But it’s actually what appears to be a rendering of a three-dimensional fractal!
Fractals are very interesting. There are different ways to describe one, but one way to think of one is that it’s a shape that looks the same no matter what magnification you use. You can double it, triple it, make it 10,876,432 times bigger, and the object still displays (more or less) the same features. The term fractal was coined by Benoît Mandelbrot, and there is an entire subclass of fractals named after him. They are seen in nature (and art, like here) quite a bit. Coastlines are fractal, as are — seriously — some kinds of broccoli.
However, fractals are generally calculated in two dimensions. What’s new here is that the fractal pattern has now been calculated in three dimensions! That is, to say the least, a non-trivial procedure — I used to play with some of the 2D equations many years ago, on my old 512k Fat Mac, with code written in Pascal (yes, with the semicolons and everything) and it was fascinating if very complex.
But the 3D idea has been written up by Daniel White, who, along with others, figured out how to create and render such an incredible object. He even created a "fly-over" video to demonstrate the fractal pattern:
Wow. Even if the math of this makes no sense at all to you, the beauty of this should be apparent.
Which brings up a point: why are mathematical shapes beautiful? What makes them so pleasing to our eyes and brain; why did we evolve an appreciation for such things? I don’t know, and at some point I’ll have to research that a bit — understanding the principles behind this will help me appreciate it even more.
Tip of the fractionally dimension hat to Fark.
Fermi may have spotted dark matter
One of the secondary goals of the Fermi gamma ray satellite is to look for the signature of dark matter. One idea for dark matter is that it’s composed of weird (and as yet undetected) particles called WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles). A very odd property about them is that they are self-annihilating: when two of them touch, they turn into energy (and other, more easily detectable particles). When I first read about this several years ago I was pretty excited, because this is finally a testable hypothesis about dark matter.
My fellow Hive Overmind blogger and astronomer Sean Carroll writes that it’s possible Fermi has done just this. The data are not conclusive, but very provocative nonetheless. He has the details.
But I can’t resist adding that on The Big Bang Theory a few weeks ago, Raj and Sheldon were investigating building a detector to look for this very type of dark matter. I wrote David Saltzberg, the science advisor (whom I met on the set last month when I was visiting LA; more on him and that at a later date) and told him this, and he noted that I was right. Well, how about that! It had to happen sometime. Now, to publish…
TAM London followup
TAM London was last month, but has created a lasting impression: Skepchick Rebecca Watson and Neil Denny (from Little Atoms) interviewed a bunch of people at TAML, including speakers and audience members. It’s a fun listen.
Not only that, but there have been lots of followup posts and articles about it:
Skepchick’s Jon Ronson interview (NSFW language in the interview and on the page)
An article in Spanish that I hope is favorable
The blog called Using Me!
Hampshire Skeptics: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 (with an awesome pic you’ll know when you see it).
So, will there be a TAM London next year? We can’t say just yet, but we’re looking into it. Stay tuned!
The Big Blog Theory
A little while back, I made a sojourn to Los Angeles to get a few things done. You know, the usual for a science blogger: get a tattoo, hang out with a man crush, watch a live taping of a smash hit comedy show, meet and greet with TV execs.
Ho hum.
But one very cool thing that happened was that while watching the taping of one of my favorite shows, "The Big Bang Theory", I met David Saltzberg. David’s a physicist and astronomer who has serious bona fides in science. All that is very cool and all, but most importantly as far as I’m concerned is that he is the official science consultant on BBT. This is basically my dream job, so I’m very jealous.
But not bitter, because David’s a great guy. We met up on the set and immediately started chatting and having fun. And to cement himself in my pantheon of Very Cool People, he gave me his copy of the script so I could follow along with the show. Whoa! [Bill Prady, the co-Executive Producer of the show, also gave me a copy of the script for my daughter; Bill and David are the ones in the picture, courtesy CBS, from a UCLA article interviewing David.]
When you watch the show, take a look at the whiteboards littering the character’s apartments and offices. They always show a barrage of equations, notes, and diagrams. Those are all real! Yup, David’s work. When Sheldon and Raj argue over dark matter detection, or Leonard spouts off a line about physics, the core science is from David’s brain.
In a very wise and fun move, David has started a blog tying the science in the episodes to what’s currently known in the field, using BBT as a springboard to explain real cutting-edge stuff. It’s called The Big Blog Theory (also available en Español), and is a great read. if you’re a fan of the show, and a total science nerd (and as I always point out, if you read my blog then congrats! You’re a nerd) then you should put Big Blog Theory on your must read list. It adds a dimension to the show that otherwise wouldn’t be accessible except through ten-dimensional matrix transformations of the standard general relativistic metric, and while those are trivial to do it’s a step you now don’t need to take.
ISS transits the Moon!
German amateur astronomer Bernhard Christ was in the right place at the right time — due to very careful planning and foresight — and captured this astonishing scene:
[Click to embiggen.]
That’s the International Space Station crossing the face of the Moon, what astronomers call a transit (like an eclipse, but when something small goes in front of something big). This image is actually a composite of several images taken in a row, with some sharpening to make it cleaner looking.
The transit only lasted for 0.4 seconds, so Christ had to be on the ball to capture this. He used a digital astronomical camera that can take what is essentially video (really just rapid still shots, but after all that’s what video is), and processed the individual frames. It’s a gorgeous image, with the Moon looking really stunning.
And if you’re wondering why he only got four shots of the ISS, look again: there is a shot of it just inside the limb of the Moon, but it’s low contrast and hard to see. Just follow the path of the ISS as it crosses the Moon and you’ll find it.
My thanks to Herr Doktor Christ for allowing me to post this picture. Well done, and vielen Dank!
Watch the Leonids!
The annual Leonid meteor shower peaks this year on or around Tuesday night. It’s a slow-peaking shower, so even if you go out tonight, or later than Tuesday, you’ll probably see a few meteors streaking across the sky.
I’ve written about them many times in the past; a review is on my Bad Astronomy site, and I wrote a guide to watching the Perseids which is still apropos of the Leonids. NASA’s science news page has lots of info, and the International Meteor Organization has technical aspects, too.
Leonids over Uluru image courtesy Vic and Jen Winter at ICSTARS.
