Now you can explore the wonders of fractals with this online generator. I’m with Revo of Ektopia on this one, I used to sit in front of my Commodore 64 and wait for hours as a short fractal zoom loop slowly rendered on the screen. After I moved to the PC platform I did the same thing with Fractint. Now there was a program!
Tag: Science
Chart of Astronomical Distances
Just how far away are planets, stars and nebula to our planet? Very handy for planning your next vacation.
[via digg]
universe5py.gif (GIF Image, 1278×8425 pixels)
Alt location
Ultra-Dense Optical Storage — on One Photon
This could make all of our current storage mediums of today look as advanced as knotted strings in a few years.
“It sort of sounds impossible, but instead of storing just ones and zeros, we’re storing an entire image,” says John Howell, associate professor of physics and leader of the team that created the device, which is revealed in today’s online issue of the journal Physical Review Letters. “It’s analogous to the difference between snapping a picture with a single pixel and doing it with a camera—this is like a 6-megapixel camera.”
Sounds a bit like a holographic process:
To produce the UR image, Howell simply shone a beam of light through a stencil with the U and R etched out. Anyone who has made shadow puppets knows how this works, but Howell turned down the light so much that a single photon was all that passed through the stencil. Quantum mechanics dictates some strange things at that scale, so that bit of light could be thought of as both a particle and a wave. As a wave, it passed through all parts of the stencil at once, carrying the "shadow" of the UR with it.
My biggest question is how will you back up all of your data, assuming that this is used for anything but short term buffers.
Rocket Booster Video of the Space Shuttle Discovery Launch.
From launch to a water landing, this stunning video shows you exactly what it would be like if you were duct tapped to the side of a space shuttle solid rocket booster. They get extra points from me for adding sound to the video. They must have bolted a transducer to the space frame of the SRB. RocketCam has more videos from past SST missions and even a few from some satellite launches.
[via neatorama]
The Online Paper Airplane Museum
Just in time for the wintry weekend, a site that can keep you amused for days! Just stock up on paper before you get snowed in.
The Mission of the museum is to inspire everyone to greater heights, no matter what they choose. If this much variation and grace can come from a simple piece of paper, imagine what you can do!
The curator says that he is going ot add my ‘build a glider from a fast food container‘ project. Neat!
Christmas Chaos
An now for something beautiful in a mathematical sort of way. Evil Scientist Labs present Christmas Chaos. Simply put, it's a mega high resolution real time ray traced fractal generator system made from coloured lights and Christmas tree ornaments. Look like a veritable science wizard when you absent mindedly put one of these together at the breakfast table on Christmas morning.