The Physics Behind “Unstoppable”

Can they stop the train loaded with haz­ardous chem­i­cals before this “mis­sile the size of the Chrysler Build­ing” hits a pop­u­lat­ed area and “vapor­izes every­thing in front of it?” That’s the big ques­tion that dri­ves along the plot of the new Den­zel Wash­ing­ton thriller, Unstop­pable. If you don’t believe me, just watch the trail­er above. Now we get all aca­d­e­m­ic on you and ask: Is that train real­ly as pow­er­ful as a sky­scraper-sized mis­sile? And then we turn to Emory physics pro­fes­sor Sid­ney Perkowitz for the answer:

Perkowitz is a good per­son to size things up. He’s not just any physics pro­fes­sor. This physics prof wrote the book Hol­ly­wood Sci­ence: Movies, Sci­ence and the End of the World and he sits on the advi­so­ry board of the Sci­ence and Enter­tain­ment Exchange, a Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences pro­gram that tries to bring more sci­en­tif­ic accu­ra­cy to mass mar­ket enter­tain­ment. Thanks Stephen for the good tip here …

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Europe: 10 Centuries in 5 Minutes

Here you have it. Europe, evolv­ing from medieval times until today. We start cir­ca 1000 A.D with the Holy Roman Empire and Moor­ish Span­ish (oth­er­wise known as Al-Andalus). Then comes the frac­tur­ing of medieval king­doms and the rise of the Ottoman Empire off in the East, until every­thing starts to uni­fy again. And, at long last, the map we all rec­og­nize today.

Note: The maps used in this video come from the Cen­ten­nia His­tor­i­cal Atlas, which has been required read­ing for all begin­ning stu­dents at the US Naval Acad­e­my for the past decade.

via The Map Room

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Evidence, Godfrey Reggio’s Short Film on What TV Does to Kids’ Brains

Between 1982 and 2002, direc­tor God­frey Reg­gio shot his well known Qat­si tril­o­gy — Koy­aanisqat­si, Powaqqat­si, and Naqoyqat­si. Some­where between the 2nd and 3rd install­ment, Reg­gio took a lit­tle detour and direct­ed a short eight minute film called Evi­dence. The main char­ac­ters? Kids watch­ing car­toons (Dum­bo, actu­al­ly) and look­ing “drugged,” “like the patients of a men­tal hos­pi­tal,” he writes on his web site.

The vil­lain? “Tele­vi­sion tech­nol­o­gy,” which “is eat­ing the sub­jects who sit before its gaze.” The weapon? Tele­vi­sion again. That “radi­a­tion gun aimed at the view­er” “holds its sub­jects in total con­trol.” A lit­tle house of hor­rors, to be sure. We have added Koy­aanisqat­si (fea­tur­ing the music of Philip Glass) and Evi­dence to our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

via @katciz, the direc­tor of the new inter­ac­tive film Out My Win­dow.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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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Rimbaud: A Life in Slideshow

It’s the life of the great French poet, Arthur Rim­baud, in a 10 minute slideshow. The video traces the arc of Rim­baud’s short life (1854–1891), stitch­ing togeth­er images from 19th cen­tu­ry France, pho­tos tak­en by Rim­baud him­self, and man­u­scripts scrib­bled by the poet. In the back­ground, Joan Baez reads lines from Rim­baud’s famous col­lec­tion, Illu­mi­na­tions, which appears in the Poet­ry sec­tion of our Free Audio Books col­lec­tion. Project Guten­berg also makes his com­plete works avail­able in French. Down­load the free e‑text right here.

David Hockney’s iPad Art Goes on Display

Famed British artist David Hock­ney start­ed cre­at­ing art for the iPhone in 2008, and then for the iPad this year, using noth­ing but his fin­gers and this handy Brush­es app. Ini­tial­ly, Hock­ney only shared his dig­i­tal draw­ings with a small cir­cle of friends. But now he’s mak­ing that cir­cle much larg­er. Start­ing in late Octo­ber, Hock­ney’s dig­i­tal fin­ger paint­ing went on dis­play at the Fon­da­tion Pierre Berge-Yves Saint Lau­rent in Paris. The exhi­bi­tion, enti­tled Fleurs fraîch­es (Fresh Flow­ers), runs until Jan­u­ary 30, 2011. Here, Hock­ney explains the basic think­ing behind the exhi­bi­tion, and here you can sam­ple some of the dig­i­tal works on dis­play. Just click and scroll down.

Thanks Ian in Brazil for send­ing this our way…

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The Economist Presents the Global Online MBA Forum

This com­ing Mon­day and Tues­day (Novem­ber 15 & 16), The Econ­o­mist will host a free online MBA fair, giv­ing busi­ness school can­di­dates the chance to chat with admis­sions offi­cers and cur­rent stu­dents from over 20 inter­na­tion­al b‑schools. Schools par­tic­i­pat­ing in the online forum include Bran­deis, Cor­nell, Pep­per­dine, Queens Uni­ver­si­ty, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, and the Copen­hagen Busi­ness School, just to name a few. The two-day event is free and open to the pub­lic. Once par­tic­i­pants reg­is­ter, they will find videos and pod­casts on press­ing MBA ques­tions, and also join chat ses­sions about MBA net­work­ing, career ser­vices, and inter­na­tion­al cur­ricu­lum choic­es. You can reg­is­ter for The Econ­o­mist Glob­al MBA Forum right here (or sim­ply click on the image above), and then get start­ed with the forum itself right here on Mon­day.

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Books Savored in Stop Motion Film

This won­der­ful stop motion film makes you pine for the good old fash­ioned print­ed book, per­haps because we all real­ize that Guten­berg’s gift will even­tu­al­ly give way to the Kin­dle and oth­er devices. The three minute film (offi­cial­ly enti­tled This is Where We Live) was shot over three weeks in autumn 2008 to cel­e­brate the 25th anniver­sary of 4th Estate Pub­lish­ers. No less than 20 ani­ma­tors took part in the project, and no less than 1000 books were put to use.

Designrelated.com takes a lit­tle clos­er look at the mak­ing of the nos­tal­gia-induc­ing film. Big thanks to Mike for the good find…

Fol­low us on Twit­ter and Face­book!

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Writing Studio Floating in Foliage

When asked to design a writ­ing stu­dio in the woods of New York, archi­tect Andrew Berman began work on his dream project. And here’s what he deliv­ered. If only we could all write in such lux­u­ry…

via Media Bistro

Out My Window: An Interactive Documentary

Out My Win­dow — it’s a new inter­ac­tive doc­u­men­tary, a film unlike any you have seen before. Kate­ri­na Cizek, the direc­tor, put it togeth­er over the course of years, and the award-win­ning film uses its nov­el approach to explore life, as it goes on, with­in high­ris­es — the most com­mon­ly built struc­tures dur­ing the past cen­tu­ry. Cre­at­ed with 360º video and high end web tech­nol­o­gy, Out My Win­dow brings you to 13 dif­fer­ent loca­tions across the globe, mov­ing from Chica­go to São Paulo, to Ban­ga­lore and Johan­nes­burg. And the sto­ry does­n’t unfold lin­ear­ly. You choose where and when you want the sto­ries (49 in total) to begin and end. The film is bet­ter expe­ri­enced than described. So my rec­om­men­da­tion: Watch the trail­er, or just jump into the inter­ac­tive doc­u­men­tary and see for your­self.

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Paul Auster Reads from New Novel, Sunset Park

This week, Paul Auster releas­es his 16th nov­el, Sun­set Park, which gives lit­er­ary expres­sion to the eco­nom­ic mis­for­tunes weigh­ing on the coun­try. The fore­clo­sures. The unem­ploy­ment. The reces­sion and depres­sion. The nov­el starts to paint the des­per­ate pic­ture quick­ly. Above, we have Paul Auster read­ing the begin­ning pages, and you can fol­low along with this tran­script post­ed online by Amer­i­can Pub­lic Media.

Auster also hap­pens to nar­rate the entire audio ver­sion of Sun­set Park, and, as pre­vi­ous­ly men­tioned here, you can down­load a free audio copy of the nov­el (or pret­ty much any oth­er book of your choice) if you reg­is­ter for a 14-day free tri­al of Audible.com. Once the tri­al is over, you can con­tin­ue your Audi­ble sub­scrip­tion, or can­cel it. It’s up to you. But, either way, you keep the book.

Thanks to Mike for spot­ting the Auster read­ing…

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Time Piece: Jim Henson’s Short, Oscar-Nominated Film (1965)

Back in 1965, Jim Hen­son, the great pup­peteer, wrote, direct­ed and starred in a short exper­i­men­tal film, Time Piece, which pre­miered at the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art in NYC. Run­ning a short nine min­utes, the film takes a sur­re­al look at the pass­ing of time. And, despite veer­ing off into rather strange ter­ri­to­ry, the film struck a chord with crit­ics and the film com­mu­ni­ty. Time Piece would be nom­i­nat­ed for an Acad­e­my Award.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

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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