Carl Sagan passes on wisdom about the importance of understanding the origins of cosmic bodies before you begin baking for the afternoon.
“If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow?
Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale.
Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures.
If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.
nosuchthingasanawkwardsilence:
A candle that smells like books.
How novel.
That’s fucking romantic as hell.
If anyone gave this to me I would ugly cry tears of joy. Oh my god. Please? Someone. Anyone. Birthday present?
A candle that smells like books.
How novel.
You don’t really need this when you have a room full of books!
I need this!
i want at least one of these before i die otherwise im going to kill somebody
So the problem with designing characters who become popular is that, if you’re a needy bastard like me who tracks the Lutece tags when you’re bored, you’re suddenly exposed to a ton of art of said characters in various states of undress.
I’m not one to discourage this sort of thing- no no, I have sketchbooks full of Remus/Sirius stuff from high school- but I figured I might as well give everyone a leg-up with a more detailed guide to Rosalind Lutece’s potential underthings. I’ve seen a ton of drawings of her in corsets from a good 50 years before her time and I… I needed to step in.
Think of this as a primer! Not a be-all-end-all of Edwardian underthings (heck, I’m still learning this stuff), but it might teach you some new fashion terms/ideas you weren’t previously aware of! Go forth, young padawan, and draw historically-accurate Rosalind porn to your heart’s content.
…I do not know if this counts as fanart or not since I’m the one doing it? Whatever. RESEARCH OR DIE MOFOS
My heart is all a-flutter.
(via creeeee)
The 4th dimension in our case is where the 3D structures including this very Universe combine and exist within changing time frames. 4D structures can’t exist within 3D ones but 3D structures can exist in a 4D just like your drawings exist within that flat paper as lines and points but couldn’t exist in our 3D world by itself. Extra dimensions work the same, like a Matryoshka doll that loses and or gains properties the further you go.
Image: 3D projection of a tesseract undergoing a simple rotation in four dimensional space.
In mathematical physics, Minkowski space or Minkowski spacetime (named after the mathematician Hermann Minkowski) is the mathematical space setting in which Einstein’s theory of special relativity is most conveniently formulated. In this setting the three ordinary dimensions of space are combined with a single dimension of time to form a four-dimensional manifold for representing a spacetime. [**]
In physics, spacetime (also space–time, space time or space–time continuum) is any mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum. Spacetime is usually interpreted with space as existing in three dimensions and time playing the role of a fourth dimension that is of a different sort from the spatial dimensions. From a Euclidean space perspective, the universe has three dimensions of space and one of time. By combining space and time into a single manifold, physicists have significantly simplified a large number of physical theories, as well as described in a more uniform way the workings of the universe at both the supergalactic and subatomic levels. [**]
But my favorite explanation of extra dimensions in general is Carl Sagan’s version. His version was based on Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions which is an 1884 satirical short story by Edwin Abbott Abbott:
The story is about a two-dimensional world referred to as Flatland which is occupied by geometric figures. Women are simple line-segments, while men are polygons with various numbers of sides. The narrator is a humble square, a member of the social caste of gentlemen and professionals in a society of geometric figures, who guides us through some of the implications of life in two dimensions. The Square has a dream about a visit to a one-dimensional world (Lineland) which is inhabited by “lustrous points”.
He attempts to convince the realm’s ignorant monarch of a second dimension but finds that it is essentially impossible to make him see outside of his eternally straight line.
He is then visited by a three-dimensional sphere, which he cannot comprehend until he sees Spaceland for himself. This Sphere (who remains nameless, like all characters in the novella) visits Flatland at the turn of each millennium to introduce a new apostle to the idea of a third dimension in the hopes of eventually educating the population of Flatland of the existence of Spaceland. From the safety of Spaceland, they are able to observe the leaders of Flatland secretly acknowledging the existence of the sphere and prescribing the silencing of anyone found preaching the truth of Spaceland and the third dimension. After this proclamation is made, many witnesses are massacred or imprisoned (according to caste).
After the Square’s mind is opened to new dimensions, he tries to convince the Sphere of the theoretical possibility of the existence of a fourth (and fifth, and sixth …) spatial dimension.
The depiction above is a 4 dimensional figure as represented by 3 dimensional cubes within cubes to visualize how 4th dimensions may work.
Related: Carl Sagan explains extra dimensions
Mind = Blown
The Tesseract is a 3D shadow of a 4D cube being rotated. Just as if you were to rotate a glass cube’s shadow onto a piece of paper. o_0
I thought I'd share my personal story
thisisafakeemail submitted:
Back in October, I got pregnant.
I’m 16, and it was the worst thing that happened to me.
I used a condom, it broke. My boyfriend bought Plan B for me (because I was too young to buy it on my own at the time). Plan B failed as well.
For the first few weeks, I just knew. I knew I was pregnant, without even a test. I remember looking in the mirror one day, I thought I looked extremely beautiful - glowing, for lack of a better word. After a few seconds, I froze. I had watched enough movies to know that ‘glowing’ in many cases meant pregnancy. I ran to my room and hid until I actually had to go to school.
But after that I was in denial, extreme denial. I thought “no, this couldn’t possibly happen to me.”
After about five weeks, I decided to go to a pregnancy center in my town (not planned parenthood, this one was privately owned). I didn’t know it at the time, but they were an extremely religious organization who tried their hardest to stop abortions.
I went in there, took the test.
Of course, it came up positive.
I was terrified, I broke down sobbing. The woman I had been talking to made no move to try and comfort me. Instead she bombarded me with questions, asking if I was going to keep the baby. If I had any religion that would influence me to keep it. Things like that.
I couldn’t answer for a while, but I wanted to scream at her.
Eventually I said “I don’t see anything wrong with abortion.”
She fought back. But you could give it up for adoption! It’s actually not that hard to care for a child! Killing it would be wrong!
I had no energy to reply, to argue. All of my peace of mind was gone, destroyed.
I couldn’t tell her that I wanted to be a Dental Hygenist, that raising a kid when I was 16 would destroy that dream for me. I couldn’t tell her that having a child with how petite I was would severly damage my body. I couldn’t tell her that I wouldn’t be able to give the life that my child deserves because I am so young…because I have depression. I couldn’t say that to carry a child for nine months, and then give it up would destroy me on the inside.
I could only sit there and cry. I cried about how this happened to me. How I’d have to tell my mom. How I have to deal with the consequence of my action.
She asked me if anyone was pressuring me into getting an abortion.
She said my boyfriend was going to leave me no matter what my decision was.
I left.
I wiped my face with my sleeve and stormed out.
I never felt so sad, so defeated. Empty.
My mom asked me later that day what was wrong, and I told her. I had lost the ability to care what she thought.
She took me to Planned Parenthood to set up an abortion.
And I am so grateful for all of the love and support I got from the people who worked there. How they made me feel unashamed and like a person. I am ever grateful for the brave women in the waiting room who comforted me, who comforted each other, who complained about the idiotic pro-life protestors who were just outside trying to influence us to keep the children who couldn’t have a good life if we kept them.
And I’ll forever love the Doctor who gave me the abortion. The Doctor who I fear for the life of because of how hated doctors who preform abortions are by so many extremests. He was the kindest man, the absolute best.
And so when I hear stories about Planned Parenthood loosing funding, I’m afraid. Because I know they’ll be replaced by places like that pregnancy center I went to. I don’t want anyone to have to go through what I did there. Regardless of the abortion bit of Planned Parenthood, I’m afraid for those women who ARE pregnant and can’t aford the prenatal care they need.
And I know, that as soon as I’m old enough. I’ll not only write letters to my congressmen…but I’ll stand up to them. Go to every single event I can to protest the cutting of Planned Parenthood’s funding. Hell, I don’t care if I end up crying in front of every single one of those men who opose abortions. I do not want anyone to go through what I went through. No one deserves that.
Thank you for sharing your story and being so brave in the face of the CPC staff member. Thank you for not being afraid of doing what’s right for you.
everyone should read this.
(via agoodvisualaid)
(Source: lickypickystickyme, via fartgallery)
Stephen Fry, the closest thing there is to a deity in my life.
i wish more people would understand this.
he’s an atheist, which is weird because i often think he may be a god.
I’m glad someone else has said this. Someone people listen to.
(Source: sarahxmay, via agoodvisualaid)
