Physics from Hell: How Dante’s Inferno Inspired Galileo’s Physics

in History, Literature, Physics | January 17th, 2011

This com­ing fall, Mark Peter­son, a physics pro­fes­sor at Mount Holyoke Col­lege, will pub­lish a new book where he makes a rather curi­ous argu­ment: Back in 1588, a young Galileo pre­sent­ed two lec­tures before the Flo­ren­tine Acad­e­my. And there he laid the ground­work for his the­o­ret­i­cal physics when he called into ques­tion the accept­ed mea­sure­ments of Dan­te’s hell (as depict­ed in the Infer­no, the great epic poem from 1314). Did debates over a poem fig­ure into the unfold­ing of The Sci­en­tif­ic Rev­o­lu­tion? The Boston Globe digs deep­er into the ques­tion with the video above and a longer arti­cle here.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Online Physics Cours­es

The Feyn­man Lec­tures on Physics, The Most Pop­u­lar Physics Book Ever Writ­ten, Is Now Com­plete­ly Online

The Sto­ry of Physics Ani­mat­ed in 4 Min­utes: From Galileo and New­ton, to Ein­stein

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Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown

in Film, Literature, Sci Fi | January 13th, 2011

Love­craft: Fear of the Unknown, a doc­u­men­tary from 2008, is avail­able online. Named the Best Doc­u­men­tary at the 2008 Com­ic-Con Inter­na­tion­al Inde­pen­dent Film Fes­ti­val, the film revis­its the life and writ­ings of H.P. Love­craft, the father of mod­ern hor­ror fic­tion. And it fea­tures impor­tant con­tem­po­rary artists (from film­mak­ers John Car­pen­ter and Guiller­mo Del Toro, to writ­ers along the lines of Neil Gaiman), all talk­ing about Love­craft’s influ­ence on their dark fan­ta­sy tra­di­tion.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

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Raymond Chandler & Ian Fleming in Conversation (1958)

in Books, Literature | January 12th, 2011

We take you back to 1958 when Ian Flem­ing, cre­ator of the great spy­mas­ter char­ac­ter James Bond, meets up with Ray­mond Chan­dler, Amer­i­ca’s fore­most writer of hard-boiled detec­tive fic­tion. The two authors, who read and admired each oth­er’s work, sat down for drinks one day and got down to talk­ing about vil­lains (real and imag­ined) and their icon­ic lit­er­ary char­ac­ters. The BBC cap­tured it all on audio (above). You can also find a tran­script of the con­ver­sa­tion on page 30 of this PDF. The con­ver­sa­tion, which has a free flow­ing qual­i­ty to it, runs 25 min­utes.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Ray­mond Chandler’s Long-Unno­ticed Cameo in Dou­ble Indem­ni­ty

The Adven­tures of Philip Mar­lowe: The Radio Episodes

Ray­mond Chan­dler: There’s No Art of the Screen­play in Hol­ly­wood

James Bond in Drag For Inter­na­tion­al Women’s Day

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Two Men: A Kafka Inspired Short Film

in Film, Literature | January 10th, 2011

Two Men, a short film direct­ed by Dominic Allen, takes an old philo­soph­i­cal sto­ry by Franz Kaf­ka, one set in Europe of course, and adapts it to a con­tem­po­rary Abo­rig­i­nal Aus­tralian con­text, using indige­nous “non actors.” In rework­ing Kafka’s tale (read the orig­i­nal text here), Allen hoped to “affirm an ele­ment of human­i­ty’s com­mon­al­i­ty” … and “rein­force Kafka’s point that it’s impos­si­ble to ever tru­ly know anoth­er’s moti­va­tions.” Made in 2009, the film has since been screened at film fes­ti­vals in New York, Prague, Lon­don, and Syd­ney, and the film earned Allen the “Emerg­ing Aus­tralian Film­mak­er Prize” at the Mel­bourne Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val last year.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Franz Kaf­ka: The Ani­mat­ed Short Film

Prague’s Franz Kaf­ka Inter­na­tion­al Named World’s Most Alien­at­ing Air­port

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Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree: The Animated Film Narrated by Shel Himself (1973)

in Film, K-12, Literature | January 1st, 2011

Back in 1964, Shel Sil­ver­stein wrote The Giv­ing Tree, a wide­ly loved chil­dren’s book now trans­lat­ed into more than 30 lan­guages. It’s a sto­ry about the human con­di­tion, about giv­ing and receiv­ing, using and get­ting used, need­i­ness and greed­i­ness, although many fin­er points of the sto­ry are open to inter­pre­ta­tion. Today, we’re rewind­ing the video­tape to 1973, when Sil­ver­stein’s lit­tle book was turned into a 10 minute ani­mat­ed film (now added to our free movie col­lec­tion). Sil­ver­stein nar­rates the sto­ry him­self and also plays the har­mon­i­ca.… which brings us to his musi­cal tal­ents. Don’t miss Sil­ver­stein, also a well known song­writer, appear­ing on The John­ny Cash Show in 1970, and the two singing “A Boy Named Sue.” Sil­ver­stein wrote the song, and Cash made it famous. Thanks to Mark, co-edi­tor of the phi­los­o­phy blog/podcast The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life for send­ing these along.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Shel Sil­ver­stein Reads His Poem ‘Ick­le Me, Pick­le Me, Tick­le Me Too’ in Ani­mat­ed Video

Studs Terkel Inter­views Bob Dylan, Shel Sil­ver­stein, Maya Angelou & More in New Audio Trove

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A New Year’s Wish from Neil Gaiman

in Life, Literature | December 31st, 2010

A few days ago, we gave you Neil Gaiman’s dark ani­mat­ed Christ­mas poem. Now, it’s time for his entire­ly upbeat New Year’s Bene­dic­tion, which has some per­fect words for any­one with a cre­ative urg­ing. This short video was record­ed in 2010 at Sym­pho­ny Hall in Boston. Best wish­es to all…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Neil Gaiman Sto­ries

Neil Gaiman Gives Grad­u­ates 10 Essen­tial Tips for Work­ing in the Arts

Neil Gaiman Gives Sage Advice to Aspir­ing Artists

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The Junky’s Christmas: William S. Burrough’s Claymation Christmas Film

in Film, Literature | December 25th, 2010

Back in 1993, the Beat writer William S. Bur­roughs wrote and nar­rat­ed a 21 minute clay­ma­tion Christ­mas film. And, as you can well imag­ine, it’s not your nor­mal hap­py Christ­mas flick. Nope, this film – The Junky’s Christ­mas – is all about Dan­ny the Car­wiper, a junkie, who spends Christ­mas Day try­ing to score a fix. Even­tu­al­ly he finds the Christ­mas spir­it when he shares some mor­phine with a young man suf­fer­ing from kid­ney stones, giv­ing him the “immac­u­late fix.” There you have it. This film pro­duced by Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la appears in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online, or you can buy it on Ama­zon here. via @UBUWeb

Relat­ed Con­tent:

William S. Bur­roughs Shoots Shake­speare

William S. Bur­roughs on Sat­ur­day Night Live, 1981

William S. Bur­roughs Reads Naked Lunch, His Con­tro­ver­sial 1959 Nov­el

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Neil Gaiman’s Dark Christmas Poem Animated

in Books, Literature, Random | December 22nd, 2010

39 Degrees North, a Bei­jing motion graph­ics stu­dio, start­ed devel­op­ing an uncon­ven­tion­al Christ­mas card this year. And once they got going, there was no turn­ing back. Above, we have the end result – an ani­mat­ed ver­sion of the uber dark Christ­mas poem (read text here) writ­ten by Neil Gaiman, the best­selling author of sci-fi and fan­ta­sy short sto­ries. The poem was pub­lished in Gaiman’s col­lec­tion Smoke and Mir­rors.

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