Radiolab Saturdays
by Greg on Apr.04, 2009, under Science Life
As I posted yesterday in Interesting Science News, Cornell scientists have constructed a computer that, using minimal rules, deduced Newton’s gravitational laws from the data set of a swinging pendulum. At first thought, those two things may seem unrelated, but here, in this short film Radiolab made about pendulums and parabolas, notice how both items show a great deal about our physical world.
:parabolas, Radiolab
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Nasa's Image of the Day
Composite of a Series of Images Taken From Space Aboard the Space Station
This is a composite of a series of images photographed from a mounted camera on the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, from approximately 240 miles above Earth. Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit said of the about photographic techniques used to achieve the images: "My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then ‘stack’ them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure." A total of 18 images photographed by the astronaut-monitored stationary camera were combined to create this composite. Image Credit: NASA
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