Snow crystals and stereoscopic vision.

I haven't given up on this blog, but I'm going through a somewhat difficult time and my mind is elsewhere. It's thus on hold for an underdetermined period.

Nevertheless, I wanted to post something special for the Holiday season with these stereo images taken with an electronic microscope by the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center.

I'm copying here one image and I'm sending you to their website for the other ones.

You must first cross your eyes, relax your vision until there are three images, then focus on the center image (that will appear when you cross your eyes). Don't stand too close from your screen (about 60 cm). You can also enlarge the image by clicking on it.

source: BARC-USDA

The entire image set can be found here.

I'm skiving off, as there are some many fascinating things to tell about crystals, stereo vision, and microscopy...

Happy Holidays and I'm hoping to come back in more favorable conditions in 2011!

Poetic science.

While I'm at it, I'd like to share two things today.

First, the world's tiniest snowman measures 0.01 mm and even has a nose!

This isn't snow though. He's made of two tiny tin beads bounds by some platinum. The face features have been designed with a focus ions beam. The link is here.

The second thing I'd like to share is a video showing droplets falling, but imaged at a rate of 2000 images/second...

I'm must confess that I don't remember much from my surface physics class, except maybe that interfaces require more energy than bulk to be created and that this is why nature tends to reduce the surfaces extent by creating spheres. I would have been more interested by this class if it had started by such a video.

F = ma

This video is already somewhat old, but if you missed it then, here it is!



While looking for it, I found out that the MIT has a large database of educational videos online, including a full class on classical mechanics.

The fantasy of any undergrad physics student is to attend a lecture given by Richard Feyman, known as an excellent pedagogue. With internet, it's almost possible!