M.I.T. Camera Captures Speed of Light: A Trillion-Frames-Per-Second

in MIT, Physics, Technology | December 15th, 2011

Think of it as the ulti­mate slow-motion movie cam­era. Researchers at M.I.T. have devel­oped an imag­ing sys­tem so fast it can trace the motion of puls­es of light as they trav­el through liq­uids and solids. To put it into per­spec­tive, writes John Markoff in The New York Times, “If a bul­let were tracked in the same fash­ion mov­ing through the same flu­id, the result­ing movie would last three years.”

The research was direct­ed by Ramesh Raskar of the Cam­era Cul­ture group at the M.I.T. Media Lab. In an abstract, the research team writes:

We have built an imag­ing solu­tion that allows us to visu­al­ize the prop­a­ga­tion of light. The effec­tive expo­sure time of each frame is two tril­lionths of a sec­ond and the resul­tant visu­al­iza­tion depicts the move­ment of light at rough­ly half a tril­lion frames per sec­ond. Direct record­ing of reflect­ed or scat­tered light at such a frame rate with suf­fi­cient bright­ness is near­ly impos­si­ble. We use an indi­rect ‘stro­bo­scop­ic’ method that records mil­lions of repeat­ed mea­sure­ments by care­ful scan­ning in time and view­points. Then we rearrange the data to cre­ate a ‘movie’ of a nanosec­ond long event.

You can learn more by watch­ing the video above by Melanie Gonick of the M.I.T. News Office, or by vis­it­ing the project web­site.

via Kot­tke

A Panoramic Virtual Tour of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History

in Art, Museums | December 15th, 2011

These days, you can take a vir­tu­al tour of paint­ings at the MoMA, Met, Uffizi Gallery, Her­mitage, Rijksmu­se­um, and Nation­al Gallery and oth­er major muse­ums, thanks to Google’s Art Project. And don’t for­get the Sis­tine Chapel and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Now let’s add one more to the list — a panoram­ic vir­tu­al tour of the Smith­son­ian Nation­al Muse­um of Nat­ur­al His­to­ry. You can vis­it the whole muse­um on your own, walk­ing from room to room, check­ing out fos­sils of count­less dinosaurs, spec­i­mens of ear­ly sea life, exhibits on the ice age, and much more. Begin the gen­er­al tour here, or find a more tar­get­ed area of inter­est here.

Note: the tour requires Adobe Flash Play­er, ver­sion 9.0.28 or lat­er.

via metafil­ter

Google Presents YouTube for Schools, Makes Video World Safe for Teachers

in Education, Google, K-12, YouTube | December 14th, 2011

On YouTube, the path to edu­ca­tion is as nar­row and as dif­fi­cult to walk as a razor’s edge. Left to their own devices, kids have a ten­den­cy to veer away from the math tuto­ri­als and head straight for the water-ski­ing squir­rels. What’s an edu­ca­tor to do?

Google believes it has the answer with “YouTube for Schools,” a new ser­vice that gives teach­ers and admin­is­tra­tors the abil­i­ty to fil­ter out every­thing but their own selec­tions from YouTube EDU, a curat­ed col­lec­tion of edu­ca­tion­al videos from sources rang­ing from Sesame Street to Har­vard.

“We’ve been hear­ing from teach­ers that they want to use the vast array of edu­ca­tion­al videos on YouTube in their class­room, but are con­cerned that stu­dents will be dis­tract­ed by the lat­est music video or a video of a cute cat, or a video that might not be appro­pri­ate for stu­dents,” writes YouTube Prod­uct Man­ag­er Bri­an Truong. “While schools that com­plete­ly restrict access to YouTube may solve this dis­trac­tion con­cern, they also lim­it access to hun­dreds of thou­sands of edu­ca­tion­al videos on YouTube that can help bring pho­to­syn­the­sis to life, or show what life was like in ancient Greece.”

To help teach­ers find the best mate­r­i­al with ease, YouTube has orga­nized the edu­ca­tion­al videos by sub­ject and grade lev­el, with more than 300 playlists to choose from at youtube.com/teachers. To learn more, or to sign up, go to youtube.com/schools.

Also don’t miss our own curat­ed list of Intel­li­gent YouTube Chan­nels, which high­lights the best video col­lec­tions on the Google-owned ser­vice.

Incredible Mental Math Gymnastics on “Countdown”

in Math, Television | December 14th, 2011

Count­down is a British TV game show revolv­ing around words and num­bers. In the num­bers round, con­tes­tants select six of twen­ty-four shuf­fled tiles with num­bers on them. Next, a com­put­er gen­er­ates a ran­dom three-dig­it tar­get num­ber and the con­tes­tants have thir­ty sec­onds to get as close to that num­ber as pos­si­ble by com­bin­ing the six num­bers through addi­tion, sub­trac­tion, mul­ti­pli­ca­tion and divi­sion. This mem­o­rable episode of Count­down aired in March 1997 and starred James Mar­tin and his rather unusu­al way of arriv­ing at the tar­get num­ber of 952.

One YouTube user sug­gest­ed a dif­fer­ent way: 6 x 75 = 450; 450 ÷ 50 = 9; 100 + 3 = 103; 9 x 103 = 927; 927 + 25 = 952

I found yet anoth­er way: 100 + 3 = 103; 103 x 6 = 618; 618 x 75 = 46,350; 46,350 ÷ 50 = 927; 927 + 25 = 952

What about you? Any more sug­ges­tions?

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Math Cours­es

Math­e­mat­ics in Movies: Har­vard Prof Curates 150+ Scenes

Mul­ti­pli­ca­tion: The Vedic Way

David Attenborough Reads “What a Wonderful World” in a Moving Video

in Film, Music | December 14th, 2011

Sir David Atten­bor­ough is Eng­land’s finest nat­ur­al his­to­ry film­mak­er, best known for his Life col­lec­tion, a series of nine nature doc­u­men­taries aired on the BBC between 1979 and 2008. It’s wide­ly con­sid­ered the stan­dard by which all oth­er wildlife pro­grams are mea­sured.

In recent weeks, British and Amer­i­can audi­ences have been treat­ed to Atten­bor­ough’s lat­est pro­duc­tion, Frozen Plan­et (see trail­er below). It’s thought to be his last major pro­gram with the BBC, and to com­mem­o­rate this mile­stone, the ad agency RKCR/Y&R has pro­duced a mov­ing video that fea­tures Atten­bor­ough read­ing lines from “What a Won­der­ful World” — you know, the Louis Arm­strong clas­sic — as scenes from Atten­bor­ough’s doc­u­men­taries fill the screen.

The ad agency intro­duced the video last week with a lit­tle blog post, which con­clud­ed by say­ing: “If you’ve had a shit­ty jour­ney into work today, I promise, this will put your smile back in place.” We could haven’t have said it any worse or bet­ter.

Ice Cube & Charles Eames Revel in L.A. Architecture

in Architecture, Music | December 13th, 2011

Here’s a lit­tle known fact about the rap­per and actor Ice Cube. Dur­ing his younger days, before he became a star, Mr. Cube stud­ied archi­tec­tur­al draft­ing at the Phoenix Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy in Ari­zona, where he gained an appre­ci­a­tion for the way archi­tects, like rap­pers, can take exist­ing mate­ri­als and work them into entire­ly new cre­ations. Yes, archi­tects can do mashups, too. And per­haps no one did them bet­ter than the hus­band-and-wife design duo, Charles and Ray Eames, who built the Eames House, a land­mark of mod­ern archi­tec­ture, in 1949.

In a video pro­mot­ing a col­lab­o­ra­tive exhib­it, “Pacif­ic Stan­dard Time: Art in L.A. 1945–1980,” Ice Cube dri­ves the streets of L.A. and explains his admi­ra­tion for the Eames House and oth­er Los Ange­les land­marks. Mean­while below, you’ll find some vin­tage footage that cap­tures Charles Eames (1907–1978), dri­ving around the city, giv­ing his own analy­sis of the hodge-podge archi­tec­tur­al styles that define Los Ange­les.

via The New York Times and Curios­i­ty Counts

Download The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine as a Free, Interactive eBook

in Apple, e-books, Music | December 13th, 2011

A year ago, Apple began sell­ing The Bea­t­les’ cat­a­logue of music on iTunes. Now, twelve months and many mil­lions of down­loads lat­er, Apple is giv­ing away The Beat­le’s Yel­low Sub­ma­rine as a free ebook.

It’s not just any ebook. Based on the 1968 film, this ebook fea­tures ani­mat­ed illus­tra­tions, 14 video clips from the orig­i­nal film, audio func­tion­al­i­ty that mag­i­cal­ly turns the book into an audio book, and var­i­ous inter­ac­tive ele­ments. You can “read” the book (down­load it here) on any iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. Our apolo­gies in advance if you use oth­er devices.

The Yel­low Sub­ma­rine will be added to our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks, which fea­tures 250 clas­sics, includ­ing texts by Isaac Asi­mov, Philip K. Dick, Dos­to­evsky, Kaf­ka, Joyce, Nabokov, Austen, Niet­zsche and oth­ers. Also don’t miss our equal­ly large col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Bea­t­les’ Rooftop Con­cert: The Last Gig

Jim­my Page Tells the Sto­ry of Kash­mir

The Bea­t­les Com­plete on Ukulele

Why is the U.S. F’ed Up? 8 Lectures from Occupy Harvard Teach-In Provide Answers

in Current Affairs, Economics, Harvard | December 12th, 2011

Last Wednes­day, the Occu­py move­ment gained a lit­tle more intel­lec­tu­al momen­tum when eight fac­ul­ty mem­bers from Har­vard, Boston Col­lege, and N.Y.U. gath­ered in Cam­bridge to present a day­long Teach-In. In one talk, Archon Fung (Ford Foun­da­tion Pro­fes­sor of Democ­ra­cy and Cit­i­zen­ship and Co-Direc­tor of Trans­paren­cy Pol­i­cy Project at Har­vard) took a vague the­sis of the Occu­py move­ment — “Shit is Fucked Up and Bull­shit” — and gave it some aca­d­e­m­ic depth in a data-filled talk called “Why Has Inequal­i­ty Grown in Amer­i­ca? And What Should We Do About It?” The oth­er talks are avail­able on YouTube (see links below) or via audio stream:

Het­ero­dox Eco­nom­ics: Alter­na­tives to Manki­w’s Ide­ol­o­gy - Stephen Mar­glin, Wal­ter Bark­er Pro­fes­sor of Eco­nom­ics, Fac­ul­ty of Arts and Sci­ences, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

Wall Street’s Role in the Euro­pean Finan­cial Cri­sis - Richard Park­er, Lec­tur­er in Pub­lic Pol­i­cy and Senior Fel­low at the Shoren­stein Cen­ter, Kennedy School of Gov­ern­ment, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

The Occu­py Move­ment and Stu­dent Debt Refusal — Andrew Ross, Pro­fes­sor of Social and Cul­tur­al Analy­sis, New York Uni­ver­si­ty

Eco­nom­ics for the 99% — Juli­et Schor, Pro­fes­sor of Soci­ol­o­gy, Boston Col­lege

Booms and Busts: The Legal Dynam­ics of Mod­ern Mon­ey — Chris­tine Desan, Pro­fes­sor of Law, Har­vard Law School, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

Fear and Pow­er — Brad Epps, Pro­fes­sor of Romance Lan­guages & Lit­er­a­tures and Depart­ment Chair for Stud­ies in Women, Gen­der, and Sex­u­al­i­ty, Fac­ul­ty of Arts and Sci­ences, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

Vig­i­lance, Inquiry, Alien­ation & Hope at Har­vard and in the USA - John Wom­ack, Robert Woods Bliss Pro­fes­sor of Latin Amer­i­can His­to­ry and Eco­nom­ics, Fac­ul­ty of Arts and Sci­ences, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Noam Chom­sky at Occu­py Boston

Har­vard Thinks Big, a TED-Esque Event

Jean-Paul Sartre Breaks Down the Bad Faith of Intellectuals

in Philosophy, Podcasts | December 12th, 2011

How many of the great philoso­phers have you actu­al­ly heard speak? This clip comes from the 1976 doc­u­men­tary Sartre by Him­self, which fea­tures dis­cus­sions with Jean-Paul Sartre and his near-equal­ly famous part­ner Simone de Beau­voir, among oth­ers. The film was released with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles in 1979, a year before Sartre died.

In this clip, Sartre crit­i­cizes mod­ern intel­lec­tu­als as “spe­cial­ist work­ers in prac­ti­cal knowl­edge,” who apply “uni­ver­sal notions and prac­tices” to par­tic­u­lar pur­pos­es deter­mined by a polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment. This can cause a con­flict of con­science: Sartre gives the exam­ple of sci­en­tists work­ing on the atom­ic bomb, but also pro­fes­sors whose efforts sole­ly ben­e­fit a small group of pros­per­ous stu­dents. Sartre thinks intel­lec­tu­als use this kind of con­flict to feel bet­ter about themselves–they may sign peti­tions, side with the work­ing class, etc.–while still not seri­ous­ly ques­tion­ing them­selves. Intel­lec­tu­als rage against the machine but are still play­ing their assigned role in it. “[They are] very pleased to have an unhap­py con­science, because that is what allows [them] to denounce.”

This is an exam­ple of his famous notion of “bad faith,” where we dis­as­so­ci­ate our­selves from our actions, or more com­mon­ly where we claim to have more lim­it­ed choic­es than we actu­al­ly do. Bad faith is pos­si­ble because of the nature of the self, accord­ing to Sartre: there is no pre­de­ter­mined “human nature” or “true you,” but instead you are some­thing built over time, by your own freely cho­sen actions, too often using the roles and char­ac­ter­is­tics oth­ers assign to you.

Ear­ly in his career, he con­struct­ed a the­o­ry of con­scious­ness and the self that makes this plau­si­ble. The work in which he did this, “The Tran­scen­dence of the Ego,” is the sub­ject of the most recent episode of The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast, pro­filed in this ear­li­er Open Cul­ture post. The pod­cast has since tak­en off: it’s cur­rent­ly fea­tured on the main pod­cast page in the iTunes store and has bro­ken the top 40 in “top audio pod­casts,” reach­ing #1 in the phi­los­o­phy cat­e­go­ry.

Vis­it the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life web page, get the episodes on iTunes, and sub­scribe to the PEL blog feed.

Mark Lin­sen­may­er hosts The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life and fronts a band called New Peo­ple.

Stephen Fry Introduces the Strange New World of Nanoscience

in Science, Video - Science | December 9th, 2011

What is nano? And how will nanoscience (the study of phe­nom­e­na and manip­u­la­tion of mate­ri­als at the nanoscale) shape our future, from the way we build hous­es to how we cure dis­eases? It’s all explained in a snap­py 17 minute video nar­rat­ed by Stephen Fry (British writer, actor and direc­tor). Pro­duced in part­ner­ship with Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty, NANO YOU was named the best short film at the Scin­e­ma Sci­ence Film Fes­ti­val in 2010.

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:

Stephen Fry & Friends Pay Trib­ute to Christo­pher Hitchens

Stephen Fry on Phi­los­o­phy and Unbe­lief

Stephen Fry Gets Ani­mat­ed about Lan­guage