There are those who believe that music brings meaning to an uncaring universe. It’s only natural, then, to try to capture the essence of reality on a musical instrument.
Sadly, the true essence of reality remains unknown. But we are able to sum up the physics underlying the world of everyday experience in a single equation. So mathematician Nicholas Hoell did the obvious thing — or at least, what should be obvious — and painted that equation on his Stratocaster. (Click to embiggen.)
Note the depiction of a few complex arrangements of the underlying reductionistic constituents, providing a nod to the importance of emergent phenomena in encompassing a complete view of the world.
I’m pretty sure that the perfect solo, played on this guitar, would reveal how to quantize gravity.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
_________________ “Amateur” Digs Deep—Very Deep—Into an Active Galaxy | Phil Plait Bad Astronomy | Wednesday, May 29, 2013, at 8:00 AM
Centaurus A (or Cen A to its friends) is a nearby galaxy with a weird history. It’s an elliptical galaxy—a giant cotton ball collection of stars—that was, until recently, two separate galaxies that collided and merged. It has a huge dust lane cutting right across the middle, a sure-fire sign that the galaxy was the result of a cosmic train wreck.
Amateur astronomer Rolf Olsen sent me a note the other day, telling me he had taken an image of Cen A. And it’s not just any image: It’s the result of a shocking 120 hours of total exposure! It’s a jaw-dropping view of this iconic galaxy:
^ The galaxy Centaurus A, taken by so-called "amateur" astronomer Rolf Olsen. Click to anthrohippenate, and you really want to. Photo by Rolf Olsen, used by permission
Holy Haleakala!
The detail is amazing, and you really seriously want to embiggen it; I had to shrink it a lot to fit it on the blog. Going over the details at Olsen’s site just amazed me more and more.
First and foremost: He took these images with a 25 cm (10”) telescope that he made himself. That’s incredible. A ‘scope that small is not one you’d think you could get this kind of image with, but persistence pays off. It took a total of 43 nights across February to May of 2013 to pull this picture off.
The features you can see are astonishing. The galaxy has a massive central black hole, and is actively gobbling down matter (which is why it’s called an active galaxy). You can’t see the black hole itself, but blasting away from the black hole at a good fraction of the speed of light are a pair of jets, beams of matter and energy heading in opposite directions (I describe how these form in detail in a post on Herc A, another active galaxy). Olsen’s image easily captures the inner jet on the side of the galaxy facing us:
^ Rolf Olsen’s shot of the Cen A jet (left) versus a professional observatory (right). Photo by Rolf Olsen, used by permission
On the left is Olsen’s shot, and on the right one from a 2.2 meter telescope. Obviously, the bigger ‘scope has far higher resolution, and can see fainter stars and features in the jet, but Olsen’s shot is pretty impressive.
In the big picture you can also see the shells of gas surrounding the galaxy, which are probably remnants of the collision, which sent out vast waves of material like ripples from a rock dropped in a pond. He was also able to identify over 700 globular clusters in his image—those are tight, spherical clusters of stars that orbit most galaxies. The Milky Way has over 150, but Cen A may have ten times as many.
^ The man and his machine. Photo by Peter Meecham/ Rolf OlsenCen A is pretty close, just 12 million light years away, making it the nearest active galaxy to us, and one of the brightest in the sky. It’s best visible from the southern hemisphere, making it a juicy target for Olsen’s New Zealand location. Still, using a ten-incher to take an image this deep and detailed is a daunting task, so I encourage you to read how he did it. I’ll add that a few years back he contacted me to say he had actually seen the debris disk—the leftover planet-forming material—around the star Beta Pictoris. No amateur had ever done that (it was only discovered in the 1980s!), so I was very skeptical. But his image and methods checked out; it was an incredible acomplishment. It’s clear he is very skilled and extremely dedicated. To say the least.
I can’t even imagine what he’ll try next. But whatever it is, I know it will be worth keeping an eye on his efforts.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
^ The CREAM instrument prior to launch in Antarctica aboard a long-duration balloon. (NASA)
Balloon-based research on cosmic particles that began over a century ago will get a big boost next year — all the way up to low-Earth orbit, when NASA’s Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (CREAM) will be sent to the Space Station thus becoming (are you ready for this?) ISS-CREAM, specifically designed to detect super-high-energy cosmic rays and help scientists determine what their mysterious source(s) may be.
“The answer is one the world’s been waiting on for 100 years,” said program scientist Vernon Jones.
^ Sgr A Chandra Image Courtesy of NASA/CXC/MIT/F. Baganoff, R. Shcherbakov et al.
Deep in the heart of the Milky Way resides a black hole. However, that is not the mysterious object which scientists Fabio Antonini, of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, and David Merritt, of the Rochester Institute of Technology, have been endeavoring to explain. The objects of their attention are the orbits of massive young stars which attend it. They are called “S-stars”.
No. That’s not a stutter. S-Stars are a legitimate phenomenon which enable researchers to even more closely examine black hole activity. Their very presence causes astronomers to question what they know. For example, how is it possible for these massive young stars to orbit so close to a region where it would be highly unlikely for them to form there? The sheer force of the strong gravity near a black hole means these stars had to have once been further away from their observed position. However, when theoreticians created models to depict how S-stars might have traveled to their current orbital positions, the numbers simply didn’t match up. How could their orbits be so radically removed from predictions?
Today, Dr. Antonini offered his best explanation of this enigma at the annual meeting of the Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA). In “The Origin of the S-star Cluster at the Galactic Center,” he gave a unified theory for the origin and dynamics of the S-stars. It hasn’t been an easy task, but Antonini has been able to produce a very viable theory of how these stars were able to get in close proximity to a supermassive black hole in only tens of millions of years since their formation.
“Theories exist for how migration from larger distances has occurred, but have up until now been unable to convincingly explain why the S-stars orbit the galactic center the way they do,” Antonini said. “As main-sequence stars, the S-stars cannot be older than about 100 million years, yet their orbital distribution appears to be ‘relaxed’, contrary to the predictions of models for their origin.”
^ 3-dimensional visualization of the stellar orbits in the Galactic center based on data obtained by the W. M. Keck Telescopes between 1995 and 2012. Stars with the best determined orbits are shown with full ellipses and trails behind each star span ~15-20 years. These stars are color-coded to represent their spectral type: Early-type (young) stars are shown in teal green, late-type (old) stars are shown in orange, and those with unknown spectral type are shown in magenta. Stars without ellipses are from a statistical sample and follow the observed radial distributions for the early (white) or late (yellow/orange) type stars. These stars are embedded in a model representation of the inner Milky Way provided by NCSA/AVL to provide context for the visualization.
According to Antonini and Merritt’s model, S-stars began much further away from the galactic center. Normal? Yep. Normal mode. Then these seemingly normal orbiting stars encountered the black hole’s gravity and began their spiral inward. As they made the inexorable trek, they then encountered the gravity of other stars in the vicinity which then changed the S-stars orbital pattern. It’s a simple insight, and one that verifies how the galactic center evolves from the conjoined influence of a supermassive black holes relativistic effects and the handiwork of gravitational interactions.
“Theoretical modeling of S-star orbits is a means to constrain their origin, to probe the dynamical mechanisms of the region near the galactic center and,” says Merritt, “indirectly to learn about the density and number of unseen objects in this region.”
Although the presence of supermassive black holes at the center of nearly all massive galaxies isn’t a new concept, further research into how they take shape and evolve leads to a better understanding of what we see around them. These regions are deeply connected to the very formation of the galaxy where they exist. With the center of our own galaxy – Sagittarius A – so near to home, it has become the perfect laboratory to observe manifestations such as S-stars. Tracking their orbits over an extended period of time has validated the presence of a supermassive black hole and enlightened our thinking of our own galaxy’s many peculiarities.
Original Story Source: Canadian Astronomical Society Press Release.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
We’ve shared oodles of great images from the recent planetary conjunction of Jupiter, Mercury and Venus, visible in the evening skies last week. But this video from astrophotographer César Cantú is just plain beautiful. On the evening of May 25, the conjunction of the three planets formed a triangle that moved through the sky, as seen from Big Bear Park in California, USA. César said via Twitter that the “star” effect was create by processing the video or with 4,6 or 8 point star filters.
And we’ve got one more conjunction image to share — actually six.
^ A sequence of 6 consecutive Jupiter-Venus-Mercury conjunction photos taken on May 23 – 28, 2013. Credit and copyright: Joe Shuster.
Joe Shuster from Salem, Missouri had six great evenings of photographing the planetary conjunction, and put them together into one collage. He used a Canon T1i and Nikkon 105mm lens. Lucky guy!
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
^ Keck Exhibit | Kanoa Music | Big Empty Field, composer/performer
_________________ There are two pieces of music heard in the above video: one for the scientific content, and the other for the credits toward the end of film. Nice overall match, I think.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
From VIMEO NOTES. The village of Kielder, just 1 mile away from the Scottish border, is England’s most remote village.
Twice a year, astronomers from all over the UK descend on this beautiful little place, because the night skies are amongst the best in Britain.
Okay - the weather isn’t guaranteed by any means. As you can see there are a few clouds that scoot over from time to time, and there’s quite a number of aircraft whizzing by too, but for astronomy it’s a thousand times better than you’ll find being anywhere near a city.
This piece was shot during the Spring 2009 and Spring 2010 Kielder Star Camps. I used the usual kit of my trusty Canon EOS 350D (nearly 80,000 on the clock now...) and my old EQ2 telescope mount. You may also notice a shot in there using a new dolly track that I have recently built - it needs improvement, but at least my first shot was usable!
I hope this film brings back good memories for all those astronomers who have ever visited this wonderful place.
All images are Copyright Martin Whipp (2010).
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
Of the many sychronizations in this video, notice various elements’ smallest movements synchronized to the pulses of music and sounds. I don’t think I’ve observed and heard such precision. In the notes, Rob Chiu and Tony Scott were the team who apparently accomplished the sychronizations.
From VIMEO NOTES. Time-lapse footage taken at the Very Large Array in Socorro, New Mexico; one of the largest Radio Astronomy Observatories in the world.
As a learning exercise, and something to challenge myself, I wanted to try to combine two of my favorite things: motion-graphics and time-lapse photography.
I also wanted to see if I could stretch my editing techniques a little further.
The VLA really is a legitimately amazing thing to see in person. If you’ve ever considered making a visit, you should.
It’s an awe-inspiring feat of human engineering, and the surroundings are gorgeous. Unbelievable skies in New Mexico. I caught some nasty weather, but it was still a great experience. I’m definitely going back! Resume.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
Astronomy Picture of the Day 2013 June 4 Orion Nebula in Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Sulfur Image Credit & Copyright: César Blanco González (cesina at hotmail.com)
Explanation: Few astronomical sights excite the imagination like the nearby stellar nursery known as the Orion Nebula. The Nebula's glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud. Many of the filamentary structures visible in the above image are actually shock waves - fronts where fast moving material encounters slow moving gas. The Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located about 1500 light years away in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye just below and to the left of the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. The above image shows the nebula in three colors specifically emitted by hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur gas. The whole Orion Nebula cloud complex, which includes the Horsehead Nebula, will slowly disperse over the next 100,000 years.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
However, there are neuroscientists studying the how’s and why’s of musical influences in the brain, and, with regard to the brain without music’s impact, nonetheless, Sean Carroll’s team are asking extraordinary questions, which fascinate in a scale with no end in sight .
It’s well worth noting that one of the panelists has been or maybe still is involved in music. Listen up to this:
Crystal Dilworth has a B.S. in Biochemistry from UC San Diego, and is currently working on her Ph.D. in Molecular Neuroscience in the lab of Henry A. Lester at Caltech. Crystal is a violinist, former nationally ranked Rhythmic Gymnast, former professional modern dancer and choreographer, an active member of the Caltech theater community, and a member of the team behind PHDComics.com/tv. As a scientist and communicator, Crystal hopes to chip away the mystique of the academic “ivory tower” and reveal researchers and their work as human, relevant, and “cool”.
Highlights mine.
_________________ New Video Project | Sean Carroll Posted on May 30, 2013 by Sean Carroll
Here’s an experimental project I’m involved in: a prospective web-based video series in which I talk to groups of people about exciting science topics. All very new and untested, but did one recording session, and would love to get feedback.
The topic we tackled was neuroscience, and in particular the idea of brain-machine interfaces. I had three guests, all of whom (unlike me) know something about the field. There was Philip Low, a cognitive neuroscientist and Founder/CEO of Neurovigil; Crystal Dilworth, a molecular neuroscientist and PhD student at Caltech; and Ricardo Gil da Costa, a computational neuroscientist at the Salk Institute. My job was to ask non-expert questions, which shouldn’t have been that hard since I am a complete non-expert.
This is the “main” part of the show, in which we talk about how brains can interface with machines.
Then we have a couple of “supplements.” Here we are talking about brain spying:
… and here we’re trying to decide what it means to be a cognitive neuroscientist. (Are there neuroscientists who don’t work on cognition? Of course there are, duh.)
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
As an offering for embellishing neuroscientific studies of the scale of musical influences in the brain, the human one, that is, the following documentary has been posted in waves, the frequencies of which are in good faith, yet with aural, harmonic tones by performance of patterned symbols upon staves, the numerous links pointing to featured personalities have not been pitched since the original post of them.
^ The Music Instinct | Science & Song, a film written and directed by Elena Mannes
YOUTUBE NOTES. The Music Instinct: Science & Song explores ground-breaking science revealing the power of music and its connection with the body, the brain and the world of nature. The film deals with research, showing music can heal as well as its potential for education.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
VIMEO NOTES. Human DNA has evolved from the DNA of simpler life forms over millions of years. The DNA codes the sequence of amino acids in a protein, which in turn defines its structure. The computer animation shows an artistic interpretation of the evolution of proteins as the DNA has evolved over 50 million years using “real world” DNA data input from the Bioinformatics Group at Imperial College London.
FormGrow is a “virtual machine” producing 3D computer art forms or designs. The DNA data, in the form of nucleotide sequences, is transformed via a series of tables empirically designed to become readable by FormGrow. These tables process nucleotides as “codon” triplets of data as would ribosomes in a live cell. Notions of “start,” “stop,” and “junk” DNA code are also embedded in the system. Through FormGrow, “artistic protein” colour schemes and structure are automatically generated in this multi-coloured animation. The structures and colour schemes generated are not those of real proteins, but since they use the same DNA sequences as a starting point for their generation, and processes with some similarities to the organic ones, they provide a visualisation of the scale of evolutionary change on a protein.
This video was created by William Latham, Professor in The Computing Department at Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK in 2007 as part of the Mutator 2 Project. The computer animation was performed on the UK National Grid Service (NGS) which is co-ordinated by STFC e-Science.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
See Science and Technology Facilities Council e-Science | VIMEO NOTES. The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) results have provided revolutionary insight into the properties of neutrinos and the core of the sun. The detector was built 6800 feet under ground in INCO’s Creighton mine near Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. SNO was a heavy-water Cherenkov detector designed to detect neutrinos produced by fusion reactions in the sun. It used 1000 tonnes of heavy water loaned from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), and contained by a 12 meter diameter acrylic vessel. Neutrinos reacted with the heavy water (D2O) to produce flashes of light called Cherenkov radiation. This light was then detected by an array of 9600 photomultiplier tubes mounted on a geodesic support structure surrounding the heavy water vessel.
Last edited by Allegro on Mon Jun 10, 2013 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
VIMEO NOTES. The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is a cooperative mission with ESA and NASA, designed to detect ‘ripples’ in space-time.
LISA will detect and observe gravitational waves that are emitted during the most powerful events in the universe. LISA will detect gravitational radiation from astronomical sources, observing galaxies far back in time and testing the fundamental theories of gravitation.
LISA’s three spacecraft will form an equilateral triangle with an arm’s length of about five million km. Each spacecraft houses two free-floating cubes made of a gold-platinum alloy inside the spacecraft, shielded from adverse effects of being in interplanetary space. The distance between the cubes in different spacecraft is monitored using highly accurate laser-based techniques. In this manner, it is possible to detect minute changes caused by passing gravitational waves.
This video shows the deployment of the satellites into orbit from the final stage of the launch vehicle.
Art will be the last bastion when all else fades away. ~ Timothy White (b 1952), American rock music journalist _________________
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