Magnificant Flying Machine

Beautiful…

from the New Scientist site:

“It’s not a bird or a plane: it’s an unusual flying object that propels itself by flipping inside out. Created by engineers at Festo in Esslingen, Germany, the floating band filled with helium takes on different shapes while expanding and contracting to generate thrust and move through the air.“

Go to New Scientist to read more

Curiosity Has Landed

Teamwork, imagination, planning, dedication and some good hard science and engineering make me proud to be human

Yosemite Time Lapse

Made by photographer Shawn Reeder, with music by Shaun Paul.

From the The Atlantic

Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher

I am stunned by the beauty and brilliance of this video by Spanish filmmaker Cristóbal Vila – Inspirations: A Short Film Celebrating the Mathematical Art of M.C. Escher.

M.C. Escher (1898-1972) was the Dutch artist who explored a wide range of mathematical ideas with his woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints.

The cool bloggers at openculture.com write: Although Escher had no formal training in mathematics beyond secondary school, many mathematicians counted themselves as admirers of his work.

 

INSPIRATIONS from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.

 

 

 

If you want to well up further with rapturous contemplation of the beauty of mathematics in nature, check out his other video, Nature by Numbers

Nature by Numbers from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.

Water propelled jet pack

More information from the New Scientist Website

Quantum levitation

The explanation for this amazing effect, involving superconductivity and magnetic fields, is here. I don’t really understand it.

Feynman’s Beauty

Dr Feynman talking about beauty is, well…beautiful

Zap!

Check out this picture of lightning over the Grand Canyon, from http://www.danransom.com/TripReports/

Stunning.

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Astronomy photographer of the year

Click below to see the BBC’s report of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2011 winners. Some gorgeous and awe-inspiring images.

The hunt for Earth-like planets

Using the prolific planet hunting Kepler spacecraft, astronomers have discovered 1,235 candidate planets orbiting other suns since the Kepler mission’s search for Earth-like worlds began in 2009.

To find them, Kepler monitors a rich star field to identify planetary transits by the slight dimming of starlight caused by a planet crossing the face of its parent star. In this remarkable illustration, all of Kepler’s planet candidates are shown in transit with their parent stars ordered by size from top left to bottom right. Read more

From http://kepler.nasa.gov

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