This XKCD cartoon illustrates an old (but perhaps correct) idea — that calculation can have consequences:
Tag: gravity
Dropped-cat research
This video (HT metafilter) shows cats being dropped in low-gravity. BONUS: “Does a Cat Always Land on Its Feet?” published in the Annals of Improbable Research, vol. 4, no. 4.
Lava lamp meets centrifuge
Neil Fraser examined how a lava lamp behaves while accelerating (which is equivalent, so they say in a low chuckle, to being subject to higher gravity): “Would a Lava Lamp work in a high-gravity environment such as Jupiter? Would the wax still rise to the surface? Would the blobs be smaller and faster? With broad […]
Isaac Newton’s great idea told in whirligig form
The whirligig shown here depicts Sir Isaac Newton’s epiphany regarding gravity in animated wind-powered 3-dimensional form. So says the Automata / Automaton blog about the machine built by Ben Thal.
Relativity, in simple words
Douglas Hofstadter (in his book Le Ton beau de Marot, and again in a lecture at Stanford University) described Einstein’s theory of relativity, using only one-syllable English words. Here’s the beginning of his talk: And it was old One Stone, too, who first guessed and then showed that the Pull Down on all things — […]