The Panthéon (Latin: pantheon, from Greek πάνθειον (ἱερόν) '(temple) to all the gods' is a building in the Latin Quarter in Paris, France. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve and to house the reliquary châsse containing her relics but, after many changes, now functions as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens. It is an early example of neo-classicism, with a façade modelled on the Pantheon in Rome, surmounted by a dome that owes some of its character to Bramante's Tempietto. Located in the 5th arrondissement on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, the Panthéon looks out over all of Paris. Designer Jacques-Germain Soufflot had the intention of combining the lightness and brightness of the Gothic cathedral with classical principles, but its role as a mausoleum required the great Gothic windows to be blocked. King Louis XV vowed in 1744 that if he recovered from his illness he would replace the ruined church of the Abbey of St Genevieve with an edifice worthy of the patron saint of Paris. He did recover, and entrusted Abel-François Poisson, marquis de Marigny with the fulfillment of his vow. In 1755, Marigny commissioned Jacques-Germain Soufflot to design the church, with construction beginning two years later. The overall design was that of a Greek cross with a massive portico of Corinthian columns. Its ambitious lines called for a vast building 110 metres long by 84 meters wide, and 83 metres high. No less vast was its crypt. Soufflot's masterstroke is concealed from casual view: the triple dome, each shell fitted within the others, permits a view through the oculus of the coffered inner dome of the second dome, frescoed by Antoine Gros with The Apotheosis of Saint Genevieve. The outermost dome is built of stone bound together with iron cramps and covered with lead sheathing, rather than of carpentry construction, as was the common French practice of the period. Concealed flying buttresses pass the massive weight of the triple construction outwards to the portico columns. The foundations were laid in 1758, but due to economic problems work proceeded slowly. In 1780, Soufflot died and was replaced by his student, Jean-Baptiste Rondelet. The re-modelled Abbey of St. Genevieve was finally completed in 1790, coinciding with the early stages of the French Revolution. Upon the death of the popular French orator and statesman Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau on 2 April 1791, the National Constituent Assembly, whose president had been Mirabeau, ordered that the building be changed from a church to a mausoleum for the interment of great Frenchmen, retaining Quatremère de Quincy to oversee the project. Mirabeau was the first person interred there, on 4 April 1791. Jean Guillaume Moitte created a pediment sculptural group The Fatherland crowning the heroic and civic virtues that was replaced upon the Bourbon Restoration with one by David d'Angers. Twice since then it has reverted to being a church, only to become again a meeting house dedicated to the great intellectuals of France. The cross of the dome, which was retained in compromise, is again visible during the current major restoration project. FOUCAULT PENDULUM: In 1851, physicist Léon Foucault demonstrated the rotation of the earth by constructing a 67-metre (220 ft) Foucault pendulum beneath the central dome. The original sphere from the pendulum was temporarily displayed at the Panthéon in the 1990s (starting in 1995) during renovations at the Musée des Arts et Métiers. The original pendulum was later returned to the Musée des Arts et Métiers, and a copy is now displayed at the Panthéon. It has been listed since 1920 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. From 1906 to 1922 the Panthéon was the site of Auguste Rodin's famous sculpture The Thinker. In 2006, Ernesto Neto, a Brazilian artist, installed "Léviathan Thot", an anthropomorphic installation inspired by the biblical monster. The art installation was in the Panthéon from 15 September 2006 until 31 October for Paris's Autumn Festival. BURIAL PLACE: By burying its great people in the Panthéon, the nation acknowledges the honour it received from them. As such, interment here is severely restricted and is allowed only by a parliamentary act for "National Heroes". Similar high honours exist in Les Invalides for historical military leaders such as Napoléon, Turenne and Vauban. Among those buried in its necropolis are Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Jean Moulin, Louis Braille, Jean Jaurès and Soufflot, its architect. In 1907 Marcellin Berthelot was buried with his wife Mme Sophie Berthelot. Marie Curie was interred in 1995. Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz and Germaine Tillion, heroines of the French resistance, were interred in 2015. The widely repeated story that the remains of Voltaire were stolen by religious fanatics in 1814 and thrown into a garbage heap is false. Such rumours resulted in the coffin being opened in 1897, which confirmed that his remains were still present. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthéon

CROATIA.

DUBROVNIK.

Summer break.

Jesuit Church - Dubrovniks most beautiful baroque complex

The baroque stairs connecting Gundulić Square with another square named after the great Dubrovnik physicist Ruđer Bošković are reminiscent of some etymologists who believe that the word baroque originated from the word shell. The one time venue of Shakespeares play Romeo and Juliet, the beautiful stairs very much resemble the ones leading to the Trinit? dei Monti Church in Rome from the Piazza di Spagna. Designed by the Roman architect Pietro Passalacque in 1738, the stairs lead to St Ignatius Church adjacent to the famous Jesuit school Collegium Ragusinum. The Church of St Ignatius - or the Jesuits, as the people of Dubrovnik call it - is the work of the famed Jesuit architect and painter Ignazio Pozzo, who worked on the church from 1699 to 1703.

The church was completed in 1725 and opened in 1729. The construction of both the Church and the Collegium began with the funds donated by a Jesuit from the Gundulić family, yet the donor had died before the designs were completed. The Collegium Ragusinum was actually founded because the people of Dubrovnik were dissatisfied with the Italian teachers with whom they often came into conflict. As soon as he was appointed, the Italian born head of the Dubrovnik diocese Beccadelli initiated the opening of the Jesuit Collegium in 1555.

The idea was realised as late as in 1658, after numerous problems with the ownership of the land had been solved. Namely, in order to build the Collegium and the Church, a large number of houses in the oldest part of the city had to be demolished. This complex is considered to be the finest Baroque set of buildings in Dubrovnik, and - according to many - in all of Dalmatia. It is thus not surprising that theatre directors at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival often use this venue as an open-air stage.

tzdubrovnik.hr/lang/en/get/sakralni_objekti/5101/church_o...

AI Generated

Imagined in MidJourney

Ørstedsparken is a public park in central Copenhagen, Denmark. One in a series of parks which were laid out on the grounds of the old fortification ring after it was decommissioned in the 1870s, the park still retains elements from the old fortifications in its topography—a section of the moat now serve as an elongated lake and former bastions appear in the landscape as small hills. The park is named for the brothers Ørsted, the politician and jurist Anders Sandøe Ørsted, and the physicist Hans Christian Ørsted, who both are commemorated with monuments in the park. (Wikipedia)

The Panthéon (Latin: pantheon, from Greek πάνθειον (ἱερόν) '(temple) to all the gods' is a building in the Latin Quarter in Paris, France. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve and to house the reliquary châsse containing her relics but, after many changes, now functions as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens. It is an early example of neo-classicism, with a façade modelled on the Pantheon in Rome, surmounted by a dome that owes some of its character to Bramante's Tempietto. Located in the 5th arrondissement on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, the Panthéon looks out over all of Paris. Designer Jacques-Germain Soufflot had the intention of combining the lightness and brightness of the Gothic cathedral with classical principles, but its role as a mausoleum required the great Gothic windows to be blocked. King Louis XV vowed in 1744 that if he recovered from his illness he would replace the ruined church of the Abbey of St Genevieve with an edifice worthy of the patron saint of Paris. He did recover, and entrusted Abel-François Poisson, marquis de Marigny with the fulfillment of his vow. In 1755, Marigny commissioned Jacques-Germain Soufflot to design the church, with construction beginning two years later. The overall design was that of a Greek cross with a massive portico of Corinthian columns. Its ambitious lines called for a vast building 110 metres long by 84 meters wide, and 83 metres high. No less vast was its crypt. Soufflot's masterstroke is concealed from casual view: the triple dome, each shell fitted within the others, permits a view through the oculus of the coffered inner dome of the second dome, frescoed by Antoine Gros with The Apotheosis of Saint Genevieve. The outermost dome is built of stone bound together with iron cramps and covered with lead sheathing, rather than of carpentry construction, as was the common French practice of the period. Concealed flying buttresses pass the massive weight of the triple construction outwards to the portico columns. The foundations were laid in 1758, but due to economic problems work proceeded slowly. In 1780, Soufflot died and was replaced by his student, Jean-Baptiste Rondelet. The re-modelled Abbey of St. Genevieve was finally completed in 1790, coinciding with the early stages of the French Revolution. Upon the death of the popular French orator and statesman Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau on 2 April 1791, the National Constituent Assembly, whose president had been Mirabeau, ordered that the building be changed from a church to a mausoleum for the interment of great Frenchmen, retaining Quatremère de Quincy to oversee the project. Mirabeau was the first person interred there, on 4 April 1791. Jean Guillaume Moitte created a pediment sculptural group The Fatherland crowning the heroic and civic virtues that was replaced upon the Bourbon Restoration with one by David d'Angers. Twice since then it has reverted to being a church, only to become again a meeting house dedicated to the great intellectuals of France. The cross of the dome, which was retained in compromise, is again visible during the current major restoration project. FOUCAULT PENDULUM: In 1851, physicist Léon Foucault demonstrated the rotation of the earth by constructing a 67-metre (220 ft) Foucault pendulum beneath the central dome. The original sphere from the pendulum was temporarily displayed at the Panthéon in the 1990s (starting in 1995) during renovations at the Musée des Arts et Métiers. The original pendulum was later returned to the Musée des Arts et Métiers, and a copy is now displayed at the Panthéon. It has been listed since 1920 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. From 1906 to 1922 the Panthéon was the site of Auguste Rodin's famous sculpture The Thinker. In 2006, Ernesto Neto, a Brazilian artist, installed "Léviathan Thot", an anthropomorphic installation inspired by the biblical monster. The art installation was in the Panthéon from 15 September 2006 until 31 October for Paris's Autumn Festival. BURIAL PLACE: By burying its great people in the Panthéon, the nation acknowledges the honour it received from them. As such, interment here is severely restricted and is allowed only by a parliamentary act for "National Heroes". Similar high honours exist in Les Invalides for historical military leaders such as Napoléon, Turenne and Vauban. Among those buried in its necropolis are Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Jean Moulin, Louis Braille, Jean Jaurès and Soufflot, its architect. In 1907 Marcellin Berthelot was buried with his wife Mme Sophie Berthelot. Marie Curie was interred in 1995. Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz and Germaine Tillion, heroines of the French resistance, were interred in 2015. The widely repeated story that the remains of Voltaire were stolen by religious fanatics in 1814 and thrown into a garbage heap is false. Such rumours resulted in the coffin being opened in 1897, which confirmed that his remains were still present. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthéon

One of the few flyable Lisunov 2 in the world on static display during ILA (Internationale Luft-und Raumfahrtausstellung) Berlin 2014. Named after Theodore von Kármán (Kármán Tódor in Hungarian), a famous mathematician, aerospace engineer and physicist. It is funny how he is now famous in Hungary, despite the fact that as a Hungarian Jew he was forced to flee the Holocaust (enforced by Admiral Horthy), went to America and did his work there. But enough politics, let's just enjoy a flying soviet DC-3 copy.

Categories:

Lisunov - Li-2 - DC-3 - Warbird - Vintage Aircraft - ILA 2014

Collections:

Aircraft - Airports - Airshows - Top 100

Taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 and 20mm f:1.7. I just picked up a new (old) wooden engineers toolbox to house the overflow from my existing camera repair tools box. I was quite taken by the grain on the Oak door so, I thought I'd better get a camera on it !

Physicist

Coimbra. Portugal 2015

Fujicolor C200

Olympus XA 1

Sir Isaac Newton was an English physicist and mathematician (described in his own day as a "natural philosopher") who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687.

Isaac Newton was born (according to the Julian calendar in use in England at the time) on Christmas Day, 25 December 1642.

Newton Lived at Woolsthorp manor after graduating at Trinity College, Cambridge.

In 1667 Newton returned to Cambridge and was elected as a fellow of Trinity. Fellows were required to become ordained priests. Newton avoided this by means of a special permission from Charles II as his unconventional views stood in the way.

2014 04 1305 East Anglia Holiday Grantham Woolsthorpe Manor 1HDR

Perhaps the earliest reference to the concept of silver-based black and white photography is that of J. H. Schulze who observed in 1727 that a mixture of silver nitrate and chalk darkened on exposure to light. The first semi-permanent images were obtained in 1824 by Nicéphore Niepce, a French physicist, using glass plates coated with a dispersion of silver salts in bitumen (a coal derivative). In the early 1830’s, Niepce's partner, Louis Daguerre, discovered by accident that mercury vapor was capable of developing an image on a silver-plated copper sheet that had been previously sensitized by iodine vapor. The image, which was called a daguerreotype, could be made permanent by washing the plate with hot concentrated salt solution. In 1889 Daguerre demonstrated his photographic process to the Academy of Sciences in Paris. The process was later improved by using sodium thiosulfate to wash off the unexposed silver salts.

In 1841, an Englishman, William Henry Fox Talbot introduced a new system, the calotype process. The Talbot process involved a paper than had been sensitized to light by a coating of silver iodide. A negative image was produced on the exposed light-sensitive paper by bathing it in a solution of gallic acid in a development process essentially the same as that used today. If the paper base employed was semitransparent, the original negative image could be laid over another piece of sensitized paper which, when exposed and developed, yielded a "positive," or direct copy of the original. The process would be equivalent to what is termed "contact printing" today. Although the calotype process required less time than that of Daguerre, the Talbot images were not particularly sharp because of the fluidity of the medium employed to suspend the silver iodide crystals.

Originally, the silver salts were held on glass using egg white as a binder. This provided relatively sharp images although they were easily damaged. By 1871, the problem had been solved by Dr. R. L. Maddox, an amateur photographer and physician, who discovered a way to prepare gelatin dispersions of silver salts on glass plates. In 1887 George Eastman introduced the Kodak system in which a silver halide-in-gelatin dispersion was coated on a cellulose nitrate base and loaded into a camera. The camera could take 100 pictures and when all were exposed, camera and film were returned to Rochester, New York, for processing. With those innovations the age of modern photography had arrived.

© All rights reserved

For all physicist and chemist

Stadtfriedhof Göttingen - Der Teich

Waiting for their shopping companion, reading up on the 10 Physicists who transformed our understanding of reality.

On November 28, 2022, I photographed Konstantin Batygin at Caltech—first at the Athenaeum, then in his office at South Mudd. He arrived in a black shirt, torn jeans, and a biker jacket. Some physicists dress like rock stars; Konstantin is one. He’s also the lead singer and guitarist for the band The Seventh Season. It was clear from the moment he stepped into the room that his identity as a scientist and musician weren’t separate things but different manifestations of the same creative force.

His blackboard was a chaotic, beautiful mess—equations scrawled in every direction, the remnants of deep gravitational musings. As he spoke about his work on Planet Nine, the elusive theoretical planet lurking at the edges of our solar system, he casually plucked at the strings of his bass guitar. The interplay was effortless, as if physics and music shared a common rhythm only he could hear.

Batygin's mind moves in unexpected ways, unafraid of the speculative and the audacious. Alongside his collaborator Mike Brown, he has built a compelling case for the existence of Planet Nine—an unseen world whose presence is inferred by the gravitational tugs it exerts on the Kuiper Belt’s most distant objects. Unlike previous claims of hidden planets, this one rests on the sturdy foundations of orbital mechanics and statistical evidence, making it one of the most tantalizing mysteries in planetary science.

As we talked, he mentioned that, from time to time, a museum will come and pack up his blackboard—preserving its contents as if it were an artifact from a lost civilization. When that happens, he simply starts fresh, chalk in hand, equations unfolding once again in their swirling, elegant logic. It is a reminder that science, like music, is an evolving composition—an unfinished symphony of discovery.

Caroline Nowlan, atmospheric physicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, answers a question during a briefing on NASA’s TEMPO (Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution) instrument, Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington. NASA’s TEMPO instrument, the first Earth Venture Instrument mission, will measure air pollution across North America from Mexico City to the Canadian oil sands and from the Atlantic to the Pacific hourly and at a high spatial resolution. A partnership between NASA and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, TEMPO will launch on a commercial satellite to geostationary orbit as early as April. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Scientists, mineralogists, atmospheric physicists – lend me your eyes! How the heck is a perfectly spherical “ring” possible inside of this tiny snowflake?

There’s not a lot going on with this snowflake, aside from the very curious center. It leaves me puzzled, as the standard models for either edge-created bubbles or dimple-covered bubbles cannot account for a ring, circular on the inside and outside, for being created. I love this, as the existing models have a very hard time and it just keeps me thinking about what we don’t know.

The outer structures are bubbles that likely began as dimples that then were covered by a ceiling of ice, and the depth around the center is inward crystal growth – these things can be easily explained. Why does the center elude such explanations then?

If a snowflake were to split in two because a bubble formed and separated a solid plate into two thinner parallel plates, it would almost always happen in a way that favours the corners differently from the inside areas, as access to water vapour is different in a hexagon. I know the snowflake couldn’t have been growing as a circle at this stage, and nothing I can imagine evokes a circular design. As soon as it began, it ended, also in a circle. Curious.

I’ve seen outer edges as circles before, and those I couldn’t explain either. Here’s an example from earlier this season: www.flickr.com/photos/donkom/46243606712/ - but still, it had a hexagonal inner edge. Whatever can create a smooth circle in a bubble on one side might be able to create it on the other as well. Still need to unravel this a little more.

A simple snowflake, but one I can’t stop thinking about. Also worth noting that this was shot on a Lumix G9 with an adapter to use the Canon MP-E 65mm super macro lens. This snowflake is TINY, and yet the edges of every line are crisp. Micro four thirds is a very desirably system for subjects at these miniscule scales, and the G9 is the best such camera I have ever used. :)

For lighting, I continue to use and enjoy the K&F Concept KF-150 ring flash, in manual mode. It’s a lovely piece of equipment not designed for Lumix but works like a charm when I’m not caring about TTL metering. The right tool for the right job, and I’m glad this one doesn’t break the bank. The same company also made the lens adapter to couple the MP-E 65mm lens to the smaller-sensor camera body.

Want more physics puzzle and photographic techniques? Check out a copy of Sky Crystals: www.skycrystals.ca/

Exploring the architectural delightful crypt of the www.flickr.com/photos/upload/# with PKC Fowler - we cooperated with the camera and cannot remember who took which shot.

The Panthéon (Latin: pantheon, from Greek πάνθειον (ἱερόν) '(temple) to all the gods' is a building in the Latin Quarter in Paris, France. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve and to house the reliquary châsse containing her relics but, after many changes, now functions as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens. It is an early example of neo-classicism, with a façade modelled on the Pantheon in Rome, surmounted by a dome that owes some of its character to Bramante's Tempietto. Located in the 5th arrondissement on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, the Panthéon looks out over all of Paris. Designer Jacques-Germain Soufflot had the intention of combining the lightness and brightness of the Gothic cathedral with classical principles, but its role as a mausoleum required the great Gothic windows to be blocked. King Louis XV vowed in 1744 that if he recovered from his illness he would replace the ruined church of the Abbey of St Genevieve with an edifice worthy of the patron saint of Paris. He did recover, and entrusted Abel-François Poisson, marquis de Marigny with the fulfillment of his vow. In 1755, Marigny commissioned Jacques-Germain Soufflot to design the church, with construction beginning two years later. The overall design was that of a Greek cross with a massive portico of Corinthian columns. Its ambitious lines called for a vast building 110 metres long by 84 meters wide, and 83 metres high. No less vast was its crypt. Soufflot's masterstroke is concealed from casual view: the triple dome, each shell fitted within the others, permits a view through the oculus of the coffered inner dome of the second dome, frescoed by Antoine Gros with The Apotheosis of Saint Genevieve. The outermost dome is built of stone bound together with iron cramps and covered with lead sheathing, rather than of carpentry construction, as was the common French practice of the period. Concealed flying buttresses pass the massive weight of the triple construction outwards to the portico columns. The foundations were laid in 1758, but due to economic problems work proceeded slowly. In 1780, Soufflot died and was replaced by his student, Jean-Baptiste Rondelet. The re-modelled Abbey of St. Genevieve was finally completed in 1790, coinciding with the early stages of the French Revolution. Upon the death of the popular French orator and statesman Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau on 2 April 1791, the National Constituent Assembly, whose president had been Mirabeau, ordered that the building be changed from a church to a mausoleum for the interment of great Frenchmen, retaining Quatremère de Quincy to oversee the project. Mirabeau was the first person interred there, on 4 April 1791. Jean Guillaume Moitte created a pediment sculptural group The Fatherland crowning the heroic and civic virtues that was replaced upon the Bourbon Restoration with one by David d'Angers. Twice since then it has reverted to being a church, only to become again a meeting house dedicated to the great intellectuals of France. The cross of the dome, which was retained in compromise, is again visible during the current major restoration project. FOUCAULT PENDULUM: In 1851, physicist Léon Foucault demonstrated the rotation of the earth by constructing a 67-metre (220 ft) Foucault pendulum beneath the central dome. The original sphere from the pendulum was temporarily displayed at the Panthéon in the 1990s (starting in 1995) during renovations at the Musée des Arts et Métiers. The original pendulum was later returned to the Musée des Arts et Métiers, and a copy is now displayed at the Panthéon. It has been listed since 1920 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. From 1906 to 1922 the Panthéon was the site of Auguste Rodin's famous sculpture The Thinker. In 2006, Ernesto Neto, a Brazilian artist, installed "Léviathan Thot", an anthropomorphic installation inspired by the biblical monster. The art installation was in the Panthéon from 15 September 2006 until 31 October for Paris's Autumn Festival. BURIAL PLACE: By burying its great people in the Panthéon, the nation acknowledges the honour it received from them. As such, interment here is severely restricted and is allowed only by a parliamentary act for "National Heroes". Similar high honours exist in Les Invalides for historical military leaders such as Napoléon, Turenne and Vauban. Among those buried in its necropolis are Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Jean Moulin, Louis Braille, Jean Jaurès and Soufflot, its architect. In 1907 Marcellin Berthelot was buried with his wife Mme Sophie Berthelot. Marie Curie was interred in 1995. Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz and Germaine Tillion, heroines of the French resistance, were interred in 2015. The widely repeated story that the remains of Voltaire were stolen by religious fanatics in 1814 and thrown into a garbage heap is false. Such rumours resulted in the coffin being opened in 1897, which confirmed that his remains were still present. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthéon

One point that certain physicists do not seem to understand is that the mechanism of the world can be neither purely deterministic nor a fortiori purely arbitrary. In reality, the universe is a veil woven of necessity and freedom, of mathematical rigor and musical play; every phenomenon participates in these two principles, which amounts to saying that everything is situated in two apparently divergent but at bottom concordant dimensions, exactly as the dimensions of space are concordant while giving rise to divergent appearances that are irreconcilable from the standpoint of a planimetric view of objects.

Another point that moderns do not grasp, is that there is no reason for necessarily seeking the cause of a phenomenon on the plane where it is produced, and that on the contrary one has to consider the possibility of a non-material cause, above all when it is a question of a phenomenon whose beginning is unknown a priori, and unknowable materially, as is the origin of living beings.

Transformist evolutionism is the classical example of the bias that invents "horizontal" causes because one does not wish to admit a "vertical" dimension: one seeks to extort from the physical plane a cause that it cannot furnish and that is necessarily situated above matter.

Even within the order of physical causes, one has to take into account the simultaneous presence of the immanent metaphysical Cause: if a seed is the immediate cause of a plant, it is because the divine archetype intervenes in the physical causality. Geometrically speaking, causes can be situated on the "concentric circles" that constitute the Universe, but other causes - and with all the more reason the First Cause - are situated at the Center and act through the radii emanating from it.

The divine Intellect contains the archetypes of creation, and it is starting from this Cause - or from this causal system - at a given cyclic "moment" of the cosmogonic process, that the "ideas" are "incarnated" which will be manifested in the form of contingent creatures.

We do not ask physicists to be content with an anthropomorphic and naive creationism; but at least it would be logical on their part - since they aim at a total and flawless science - to try to understand the traditional ontocosmological doctrines, especially the Hindu doctrine of the envelopes (kosha) of the Self (Atma): a doctrine that, precisely, presents the Universe as a system of circles proceeding from the Center-Principle to that extreme limit which for us is matter.

For human science does not derive solely from the need to know and to register; more profoundly its origin is the thirst for the essential; now the sense of essentiality attracts us toward shores other than those of the limited plane of physical phenomena alone.

---

Frithjof Schuon: Roots of the Human Condition

“Nature is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere”.

( Pascal - French Mathematician, Philosopher and Physicist, 1623-1662)

This was shot at the door of the Sas-Bahu temple (mother-in-law and daughter-in-law temple) located in Gwalior, in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

This temple, initially dedicated to Vishnu, was built in red sandstone during the rule of the Kachchhapaghatas in the 10th century .

It was at sunset, I was alone, the temple seemed to be infinite with the many sculpted spheres of its amazing architecture.

I decided to walk inside towards the center from nowhere to everywhere...

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Inspired by the master and my two favorite physicists.

www.flickr.com/photos/maxxwellsmart/

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If anyone objects to my using this image on Flickr, just tell me and I will remove it!!

As an experiment, and to fulfill my audiologist's explicit requirements, I’m reading the Gutenberg Press online free version aloud. The goal is to retrain my brain to understand what the cochlear implant hears, i.e., the signals it sends to my brain.

The LibriVox version shown here is not understandable. It doesn't work for me. So I've started reading the Gutenberg Project's online version of Albert Einstein's Lectures on The Meaning Of Relativity aloud.

Today, I will try having my aid read it aloud, with me reading it on my mobile phone or printed out on my printer.

It should be an interesting experiment.

_________________________________________________

Here’s a link to The Gutenberg Project Version that you can read on your computer or mobil phone:

www.gutenberg.org/files/36276/36276-pdf.pdf

After going to the Gutenberg version;

1. In your browser's View, set the size to see a portion of the first page that you can read easily.

2. Scroll down to start reading this page and all other pages of the book.

Tags:

"Cochlear Implant" "Bionic Man" "Retrain The Brain" "Reading Aloud" Book "Book Search" "Project Gutenberg" Ebook Audiologist Recommendation Experiment Physics Physicist Teaching "Love of Books" "Meaning of Relativity" "Albert Einstein" Lecture "Special Relativity" "General Relativity"

IMG_7306 V2

Title: Einstein at the Grand Canyon

Artist: Eugene Omar Goldbeck

Artist Bio: American, 1892 - 1986

Creation Date: 1922

Process: gelatin silver print

Credit Line: Gift of Terry Etherton

Accession Number: 1987.011.001

JAMES CLERK MAXWELL (1831-1879) Physicist

Lived here

Taken on April 13, 2017.

My wife Theresa and I are staying two nights 12 & 13 April, in London at the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel near Hyde Park, then travelling on to Cambridgeshire to spend Easter with my wife's family. We return to Athens, Greece on April 21st, 2017.

Thanassis Fournarakos - Θανάσης Φουρναράκος

Professional Photographer, Athens, Greece

(retired in 2011, born in 1946).

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

None of my images may be downloaded, copied, reproduced, manipulated or used on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit written permission. THANK YOU!

Quite a while ago, Ralph (aka Mad Physicist) posted his rather awesome Mercedes Car Carrier.

Rightfully so I was kinda curious to also make one, since I also have a lot of 10-wide cars. So this was raised. Which, well, was not so good. Mainly because the truck was too small for the scale.

Then, two years later, I stumbled across it again. So I asked for advice on scaling to Ralph, and took his advices to make this thing to carry my Citroëns around.

Again, a MAN cab, but now in orange, and it's 14-wide instead of 12.

I would always like a white background for my BlueRender but this time around, LDD got overloaded pretty heavy. The truck without cars might only contain 1622 pieces, but put the cars on it and it becomes 5691. So. This could be my largest build to date.

Also no pictures without cars on it, it's really hard to take them off especially when LDD has a hard time loading all of it.

Sancta Sophia was designed by the Greek scientists: the physicist Isidore of Miletus and the matematician Anthemius of Tralles.

The architecture belongs to early Byzantine period, 330 - 730 AD.

It was during Emperor Justinian’s rule from 527 to 565 AD that Byzantine Art and architecture flowered. He instituted a building campaign primarily in Constantinople and later in Ravenna, Italy.

See further byzantine works HERE

Walk up to the first floor of Hagia Sophia

Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos tribute

Hagia_Sophia, Holy Wisdom

This portrait of Professor Hans Bethe is displayed in Los Alamos. In those days, he was the head of the Manhattan Project's theoretical group. He was a Noble Prize winning physicist who determined the nuclear source of the sun's energy. The sun is mainly composed of hydrogen nuclei. Hans Bethe identified the process by which the sun synthesizes the elements of ascending atomic numbers greater than that of hydrogen. He showed it was based on a catalytic cycle involving nuclear elements up through carbon nuclei. I was fortunate to have him review my work in later years.

After I received my Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics from M.I.T. in 1965, I worked for a company in a town near M.I.T.. The founder, Arthur Kantrowitz, was a Professor at Cornell, as was Hans Bethe. Hans came each month as a consultant. He reviewed significant work and gave his thoughts and recommendations. I presented work at Committee meetings for him to review. He was pleased with my group's results. I spoke with him again a few years later when he gave a lecture at The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. His lecture was about the creation of the elements above hydrogen in the sun that are observed in the discrete spectral lines in the sun's continuous light spectrum. The nuclear creation process involves a catalytic nuclear cycle from hydrogen up through carbon. That was the work for which he had received the Nobel Prize in Physics years earlier. Needless to say, it was a wonderful presentation.

Afterwards, I went up to talk to him. I told him that I was struck with the similarities between his presentation and the work we were doing, that he had reviewed at AERL. He said “I was often struck by the very same thought.”

Needless to say, I was pleased, actually thrilled, that he had good memories of me.

Fred Begay, aka Fred Young, or Clever Fox a Navajo/Ute nuclear physicist and artist created this work which is exhibited at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Part of "res noscenda note notiz sketch skizze material sammlung collection entwurf überlegung gedanke brainstorming musterbogen schnittmuster zwischenbilanz bestandsaufnahme rückschau vorschau" - Empty Padded ~ LeerGefüllt - Time at Work - Left handed drawings and writings on the empty left pages of my prompter`s book: Soufflierbuch "Die Physiker The physicists" (Friedrich Dürrenmatt) Seite 39

DMC-GH3 - P1040376 - 2015-05-13 panasonic lumix

#thema #themenkreis #aesthetizismus #work #arbeit #handwerk #theater #theatre #probe #rehearsal #performance #improvisation #fermate #entwurf #face #gesicht #portrait #porträt #spiegelaffe #abstrakt #körper #body #schriftbild #schaubild #schnittmuster #maske #mask #narrenturm #blue #blau #brille #glasses #affe #mandrill #pavian #spiegel #mirror

Alexander Langsdorf's liquor cabinet. Dr. Langsdorf's contribution to the Manhattan Project was just a speck -- a speck of plutonium, some of the first usable sample of the radioactive element. Dr. Langsdorf produced the speck from a cyclotron, an atomic-particle splitter, which he and another scientist had built at Washington University in St. Louis for medical research just before World War II.

The speck was used in tests in Los Alamos, N.M., before the first atomic bomb was exploded in the New Mexico desert on July 16, 1945. That bomb was plutonium-fueled, as was the one dropped on Nagasaki. (The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a uranium-fueled device.)

www.brainpickings.org/2016/01/12/the-confidence-game-mari...

You can climb to the top Mount Ai-Nikola along a hiking trail laid famous physicist Kurchatov while on vacation in Nizhnyaya Oreanda. At the top you can see an old iron cross, erected here by the Cossacks in the 17th century. There are also many interesting places around from an archaeological point of view: for example, two burial grounds with stone sarcophagi, the Oreand fortress on the Cross rock or the remains of the ancient Khachla-Kayasy monastery on the same rock.

Тропа расположена на Южном берегу Крыма. Появилась она в 1950 году благодаря знаменитому советскому ученому Игорю Курчатову. Он прославился благодаря тому, что стал одним из создателей ядерного оружия. Исследователь провел на полуострове свои студенческие годы, а в дальнейшем часто приезжал сюда на отдых. Во время отпусков изобретатель регулярно совершал пешеходные походы по полуострову. В 1950 году физик отдыхал в Ялте в санатории «Нижняя Ореанда», тогда и нашел достаточно легкий и очень живописный подъем на расположенную неподалеку гору Ай-Никола. Исследовав тропу к ее пику, ученый стал водить туда группы отдыхающих. Предварительно туристы получали от него напутственную речь. Игорь Васильевич советовал не брать в поход еду и интенсивно худеть в процессе подъема.

Marie Skłodowska Curie (/ˈkjʊəri/; French: [kyʁi]; Polish: [kʲiˈri]; born Maria Salomea Skłodowska [ˈmarja salɔˈmɛa skwɔˈdɔfska]; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences, and was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.

She was born in Warsaw, in what was then the Kingdom of Poland, part of the Russian Empire. She studied at Warsaw's clandestine Flying University and began her practical scientific training in Warsaw. In 1891, aged 24, she followed her older sister Bronisława to study in Paris, where she earned her higher degrees and conducted her subsequent scientific work. She shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband Pierre Curie and with physicist Henri Becquerel. She won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Her achievements included the development of the theory of radioactivity (a term that she coined), techniques for isolating radioactive isotopes, and the discovery of two elements, polonium and radium. Under her direction, the world's first studies into the treatment of neoplasms were conducted using radioactive isotopes. She founded the Curie Institutes in Paris and in Warsaw, which remain major centres of medical research today. During World War I, she developed mobile radiography units to provide X-ray services to field hospitals.

While a French citizen, Marie Skłodowska Curie, who used both surnames, never lost her sense of Polish identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland. She named the first chemical element that she discovered‍—‌polonium, which she isolated in 1898‍—‌after her native country.

Marie Curie died in 1934, aged 66, at a sanatorium in Sancellemoz (Haute-Savoie), France, of aplastic anemia from exposure to radiation in the course of her scientific research and in the course of her radiological work at field hospitals during World War I. (Wikipedia)

Owl Mk. III is an update of a plane that was originally a bad copy of Mad Physicist's He-219. In the year and a few months since I've built that, it's become much more of my own. Since the last version we saw, I've extended the fuselage, changed the engines, changed the vertical stabilized, made more of the wings and hull studless, and changed the bottom completely (though you won't see that from this angle). Here we see it in night-fighting colors flying over the land by day... for some reason.

This version shows 4x30mm cannons in the ventral nacelle, two more 30mms in the wing root, and a final two pointed upwards in the back (it is German inspired, after all). I imagine this would be obscenely heavy, so I'm gonna say that guns can be changed out to lighter armaments and loads.

The official name is Chouette now, which not only means owl, but it also apparently a similar term for "cool." And this plane is pretty cool...

The Dimension of the Light

Not only shamans know we are made of light or energy.

Light is energy of course or vibration.

Physicists talk about light quantum.

Through meditation I recognized the same.

Deep meditation can have the same effect as a trance dance –

Meditation can open the special space – the space between…

Trance does not mean unconscious mind – I never felt “drunk” but clear and aware.

Meditation is a way to experience altered states of consciousness. But it takes time to practice. First I was confronted with my emotions like anger, enviousness, guilt or impatience. But after that… I was just giving up… I was sitting in pure bliss… I felt light… I recognized the energy… and then nothing but consciousness of what was happening… hard to explain… but worth trying to make the experience oneself.

Meditation is a practice to slow down activity – trance dance is hyper activity. Both can have the same effect: the experience of the other dimension.

I see the same world with new eyes. Not the physical eyes. In dreams you do not see with physical eyes. Consciousness sees…

HKD

Nicht nur die Schamanen wissen, dass wir Lichtwesen sind.

Licht ist Energie oder natürlich auch Vibration, Schwingung.

Physiker sprechen von Photonen. Materie ist Energie – Licht.

Die Erfahrung, dass ich aus Energie bestehe machte ich durch Meditation. Tiefe Meditation hat auf mich den gleichen Effekt wie Trance Dance. Auch Meditation kann den speziellen Raum öffnen, den Zwischenraum, zwischen „Diesseits und Jenseits“. Diesseits ist Jenseits und umgekehrt. Genauer, das Diesseits wird zum Jenseits und schließlich wird das jenseits wieder zum Diesseits. Man könnte auch sagen, raus aus dem Ego-Bewusstsein und wieder rein.

Allerdings bedarf auch Meditation einer gewissen regelmäßigen Praxis Anfangs wurde ich mit meinen Emotionen konfrontiert, Ärger, Neid, Schuldgefühle und Ungeduld plagten mich. Aber dann, ich wollte gerade alles hinwerfen, saß ich in reiner Glückseligkeit. Ich fühlte mich licht… erkannte die Energie… und schließlich war das Geschehen, (das Nicht-Geschehen) nur Bewusstheit und Bewusstsein… Das ist alles sehr schwierig in Worte zu fassen… Aber es erscheint mir wertvoll genug, die Erfahrung selbst anzustreben. (Wer strebend sich bemüht…)

Meditation ist ein Praxis, jegliche Form von Aktivität bis gegen Null zu verlangsamen, körperlich und geistig. Trance Dance dagegen kommt von der anderen Seite und zwar mit rhythmischer Aktivität. Beides kann denselben Effekt haben: Die Erfahrung der anderen Dimension.

Ich sehe dieselbe Welt mit neuen Augen. Die physischen Augen sind nicht gemeint. Auch in Träumen sieht man nicht mit physischen Augen. Die Wahrnehmungsweise geschieht aus dem Bewusstsein heraus. Bewusstsein nimmt wahr. Der Träumer und das Geträumte entspringen ein und demselben Bewusstsein.

HKD

What is it about electronic music that makes it impossible for some to stand still? What is it about country music that makes others want to throw wherever the sound is coming from out the nearest window? What is it about 432 Hz that makes us feel so relaxed?

Music is a force to be reckoned with. Certain songs bring you to tears while others get you exhilarated and inspired for a once dreaded workout. People create playlists for when they’re downhearted, happy and almost every emotion in-between.

Music affects more than your psyche, as well. It is also known to affect internal functions like blood pressure, speed or slow down your heart rate, reduce anxiety and even help with digestion, amongst many other things. What most people don’t know though is how it does this. I mean, what is music made of? What properties make up the landscape of sounds that create a song?

Well in short, it's all about frequencies and, the way we feel, the way the brain responds when we listen, depends on the combination of frequencies in the track. This is known as the frequency response This simple theory will help you understand the fuss surrounding the slightly more complicated theory of the power of 432 Hz. The Earth’s Heartbeat (The Schumann Resonance) To understand this whole 432 Hz thing, we need to first learn about the Schumann Resonance, which will ultimately explain this number’s importance. German physicist Winfried Otto Schumann documented the Schumann Resonance in 1952.

He understood that global electromagnetic resonances exist within the cavity between the Earth’s surface and the inner edge of the ionosphere and are excited and activated by lightning.

He determined that the frequency of these electromagnetic waves are very low, ranging anywhere from 7.86 Hz to 8 Hz.

This frequency is essentially the Earth’s heartbeat; the frequency the Earth beats at. Now, 432 Hz resonates with the frequency of 8 Hz. And here’s how… On the musical scale where A has a frequency of 440 Hz, the note C is at about 261.656 Hz.

On the other hand, if we take 8 Hz as our starting point and work upwards by five octaves (i.e. by the seven notes in the scale five times), we reach a frequency of 256 Hz in whose scale the note A has a frequency of 432 Hz. This frequency, which is at the top end of the Theta range and at the start of the Alpha range, makes us feel very relaxed but conscious and open to intuitive learning. Listening to a concentrated recording of music at this frequency, like a binaural beats track, will synchronize (entrain) the brain to this state and induce the aforementioned effects.

Think for a moment about all the frequencies that travel through your brain in a given day: cell phones, Wi-Fi, radio and microwaves. All these exist at different frequencies and pull our brain from one frequency to the next. The brain is on a constant yo-yo, being pinged at by different frequencies: it’s no wonder these devices emitting artificial electromagnetic radiation have been linked to cancer, depression and insomnia. So it makes sense that if we spent more time being attuned to the natural electromagnetic pulses of the earth (the heartbeat of Mother Nature) – at 432 Hz – we would, in turn, feel more centered, balanced, conscious and peaceful. ✓ Try Our 432Hz Meditation Today! 432 Hz Vs the Commercial Standard 440 Hz Okay, so now we understand that, why the hell isn't all music tuned to 432 Hz! Well, it has been during some periods, and many greats have lobbied for it, but it didn't work out that way. And here's why…

According to music theory, A=432 Hz is mathematically consistent with the universe. This is known as Verdi’s ‘A’ – named after Giuseppe Verdi, a famous Italian composer.

Verdi and many other musicians, like Mozart, tuned their music to this frequency because of its healing energy and the natural ‘feel good’ properties it evoked in the audience. In fact, Verdi wrote to the Congress of Italian Musicians to have 432 Hz approved as the standard tuning. Subsequently, this was unanimously approved in 1881 and recommended further by physicists Joseph Sauveur and Felix Savart, as well as by the Italian scientist Bartolomeo Grassi Landi. However, it wasn't enough. Even though this was approved in Italy at the time, music is not tuned at 432 Hz as standard today. This is because The American Federation of Musicians accepted the 440 Hz as the standard pitch in 1917. Then, in 1940, the United States introduced 440 Hz worldwide. London followed suit, and in 1953 440 Hz was approved as the general tuning standard for musical pitch there. What? I know. Weird. Since then, 440 Hz has since stood the test of time, despite geniuses like Verdi and many great producers and composers agreeing that this frequency is disharmonic because it has no scientific relationship to the physical laws that govern our universe. Historical Use of 432 Hz: Ancient Greece, Egypt & Tibet Further evidence of a 432 Hz preference is found in ancient Greece, where instruments associated with Orpheus – the God of Music – were tuned at 432 Hz. And get this, according to international researcher and musician Ananda Bosman, the majority of instruments unearthed from ancient Egyptian sites are tuned to, yes, you guessed it, A=432 Hz! The evidence doesn’t stop there, either.

Using a Korg Tuner, like this one, sound researcher Jamie Buturff discovered that many CD recordings of Tibetan monks’ singing bowls were tuned at 432 Hz. This is undoubtedly because of the frequency's direct link to Mother Nature and natural ability to make people relax for meditative purposes. 432 hz music ✓ Experience Our 432Hz Meditation Today!

432 Hz Conspiracy Theories The mathematical theory behind 432 Hz and its endorsement by famous musicians cannot be doubted, neither can the fact that the Earth is tuned at this frequency. However, the Internet, like it does with so many things, has injected this science with mystery, sparking a number of conspiracy theories. It's not surprising though. Considering that musical greats and ancient societies preferred 432 Hz, but the US and UK ignored this and chose 440 Hz, it was bound to make people suspicious. Most theories centre around the belief that the 440 Hz frequency was deliberately adopted by governments/regimes as a way to manipulate and control the masses, making then lethargic, often borderline depressed and therefore easily influenced, Perhaps the most popular conspiracy theory is that of Nazi Germany. It is suggested that the regime decided to adopt 440 Hz as standard, avoiding 432 Hz at all costs and developing other influential frequencies alongside it designed to assist in the control of people's minds.

Joseph Goebbels, who served as a prime minister of propaganda for the German Third Reich, and whose job was to spread the Nazi message, supposedly directed this mission.

He apparently used music containing concentrated 440 Hz frequencies and others to induce fear and hostility in the masses. People listening to this music were essentially prisoners of their own aggressive consciousness.

While this certainly is an interesting theory, there is no proof to back up this claim. Why You Need More 432 Hz Music in Your Life It is no surprise that when listening to the same music tuned at the two different frequencies (432 Hz and 440 Hz), most people say they feel a sense of relaxation after having listening to the 432 Hz version. However, the average person, distinguishing between the two by ear would be difficult, and on a first listen the effects might not be that pronounced.

Over time though, you will naturally feel more pleasant listening to 432 Hz music instead of 440 Hz – because your brain will become attuned to the frequency of the Earth. 440 Hz, despite being forced upon us as a music tuning pitch standard, is not in harmony with the frequency of the Earth. It is alien to us as a species. We are part of Mother Nature, and therefore playing the brain music that isn't tuned at this frequency over a prolonged period of time will of course make you feel out of sync.

Could this be the reason that certain types of music cause behavioural issues and intense negative emotional reactions in some people? Possibly. Of course, a person might not realise that they are being affected by the frequency. Every day you hear music tuned at 440 Hz, so it is unlikely that you would stop and think, I feel quite agitated and out of sorts lately; must be all that 440 Hz music. But the reality is that it could well be the reason for days when you can't quite place why you feel imbalanced and misaligned with life. Humans are a part of nature like every other animal and plant species, so it makes absolute sense that aligning your energy with the Earth will naturally make you feel more peaceful and happier. We all know music has healing properties: Music therapists use music to help restore memory in Alzheimer’s patients, improve basic motor skills in stroke victims and help many more suffering from a range of different things. We also know that listening to specific frequencies in concentrated amounts, entrains the brain to specific states of well-being. And all the evidence, scientifically from nature, mathematically from music theory and endorsed by the likes of Verdi and Mozart, points towards the fact that 432 Hz is an extremely powerful tuning frequency, from which instruments should be tuned. For this reason, we have produced our own 432 Hz binaural beats meditation, which you can use to attune your brain to the Earth's frequency for increased well-being. Not only will you feel a calming effect after listening, regular listening will decrease feelings of stress and anxiety and in turn promote natural healing and a deeper connection with all sentient beings and the world at large. It's time to tune yourself to the heartbeat of the planet.

www.binauralbeatsmeditation.com/432-hz-truth-behind-natur...

Gather ’round, kids. Those of you with tinfoil hats may wish to ensure that they’re fitted snuggly. What I’m about to tell you will shake your faith in all the music you’ve heard in your life.

If you look down the right paths, it becomes clear that governments and various security apparatuses have used music to control us using music. All the music of the West that’s based on the standard 12-tone scale is used for the management of crowds as well as thought control.Let’s begin with some music theory. If musical performances were to sound the same the world over, some standardization was required. As early as 1885, the Music Commission of the Italian Government declared that all instruments and orchestras should use a tuning fork that vibrated at 440 Hz, which was different from the original standard of 435 Hz and the competing 432 Hz used in France.

In 1917, the American Federation of Musicians endorsed the Italians, followed by a further push for 440 Hz in the 1940s.With the help of Verdi, 432 Hz appeared as a reference at the end of the 19th century. In 1939, gear change: the International Federation of National Standards Associations, now known as the International Organization for Standardization, decided on a standard pitch at 440 Hz. This decision was ratified a few years later at an international conference in London in 1953, despite protests from Italians and French people, who were attached to Verdi's 432 Hz. Finally, in January 1975, the 440 Hz pitch became a standard (ISO 16:1975), which subsequently defined its use in all music conservatories. The 440 Hz frequency has therefore won the institutional battle, becoming an international standard.

This hegemony, and the dates on which it solidified, did not fail to provoke a reaction from conspiracy fighters of all kinds. Indeed, the promulgation in 1939 of the 440 at the expense of the 432 led to a musical coup d'état by the Nazis - the Germans had very early, around 1700, chosen the 440 Hz. With Hitler's desire to rebuild the great lost Germanic empire, music was instrumentalized, becoming a spearhead of this lost desire for greatness. Perhaps, as Amaury Cambuzat wisely points out, "they were based on a statement by Plato: if you want to control the people, start by controlling their music. The Nazis having proven their ability to recover and their obsession with imposing standards (as they adopted the swastika symbol)...". Music would therefore only be a collateral victim.There is no international conspiracy to prefer 440Hz to 432, but conspiracy theories are getting out of hand. With calculations that Nostradamus would not deny, some "specialists" are having a field day on the Web. The 432Hz would thus be "the setting that makes the golden reason of the PHI universe vibrate and unifies the properties of light, time, space, matter, gravity and magnetism with biology, the code of DNA and consciousness. When our atoms and DNA begin to resonate in harmony with the spiral pattern of nature, our sense of connection to nature is said to be "enlarged". The number 432 is also reflected in the reports of the Sun, the Earth, the Moon, the precession of the equinoxes, the Great Pyramid of Egypt, Stonehenge, Sri Yantra and many other sacred sites," says Esprits Science Métaphysiques.com. This galimatias, which puts DNA and consciousness on a scientific equal footing, brews up a delirious mysticism, proposes clever calculations that would almost prove that 432 is God's other name. In 1953, a worldwide agreement was signed. Signatories declared that middle “A” on the piano be forevermore tuned to exactly 440 Hz. This frequency became the standard ISO-16 reference for tuning all musical instruments based on the chromatic scale, the one most often used for music in the West. All the other notes are tuned in standard mathematical ratios leading to and from 440 Hz.

This tone standard is now universally accepted, which is why a piano in Toronto sounds exactly the same as a piano in China.

Weirdly, no one can say for sure why this frequency was chosen in the first place. In fact, there those among us who vehemently disagree with this standard. In fact, they consider the 440 Hz middle “A” to be an abomination against nature. Adherents to this theory claim that a more “natural” frequency for middle “A” is 438 Hz. Others believe that the correct middle “A” is 432 Hz (also known as Verdi’s A) because it has “a pure tone of math fundamental to nature” and is “mathematically consistent with the patterns of the universe, vibrating with Phi, the Golden Ratio. They point to how this pitch can be connected to everything from nautilus shells to the works of the ancients, including the construction of the Great Pyramid. Furthermore, 432 Hz resonates with 8 Hz (the Schumann Resonance), the documented fundamental electromagnetic “beat” of Earth. It just feels better. Research says that music tuned from this frequency is easier to listen to, brighter, clearer, and contains more inherent dynamic range. As a result, music with this tuning need not be played at higher volumes and thus reduces the risk of hearing damage.If the importance of musical frequency remains undeniable, since the human body is intrinsically sensitive to its environment, wanting to discern a pitch superior to all is ineptitude. Amaury Cambuzat remains convinced "that none of these tuning fork frequencies, whether 440 Hz or others, is absolute. This frequency would have to be continuously modulated and modified according to places, seasons, and so many other biological factors to be able to approach a "perfect vibration" frequency. Again, assuming that the latter exists. 432 Hz could become the majority frequency nowadays but certainly not universal. To affirm such a theory, it would be necessary to deny that everything is in motion, in constant evolution, not to take into account the peoples who rely on their traditional way of singing and playing their instruments in direct relation with their senses, their culture and what surrounds them, and certainly not on a standard pitch at 432 or 440 Hz". The more radical among middle “A” haters insist that the true frequency should be 528 Hz because it’s a “digital bio-holographic precipitation crystallization [and] miraculous manifestation of diving frequency vibrations.” I have no idea what that means. Here’s where the conspiracy comes in. There is allegedly something sinister and evil about 440 Hz. It is said that the Rockefeller Foundation had an interest in making sure the United States adopted the 440 Hz standard in 1935 as part of a “war on consciousness” leading to “musical cult control.” Without going too far down this rat hole, this theory says that tuning all music to 440 Hz turns it into a military weapon. I quote from one of the many online articles on the subject: “The monopolization of the music industry features this imposed frequency that is ‘herding’ populations into greater aggression, psychosocial agitation, and emotional distress predisposing people to physical illnesses and financial impositions profiting the agents, agencies, and companies engaged in the monopoly.” Going a little deeper, we end up at the doorstep of the Nazis. It is said that propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels insisted that on 440 Hz tuning in Germany because he believed it made people think and feel in specific ways, making them “a prisoner of a certain consciousness.” And if you’re trying to mobilize the population for Der Fuhrer, that’s exactly what you want, right? There’s more from the Tinfoil Headphones crowd: “The powers that be are successfully lowering the vibrations of not only the young generation but the rest of us as well. These destructive frequencies entrain the thoughts towards disruption, disharmony, and disunity. Additionally, they also stimulate the controlling organ of the body — the brain — into disharmonious resonance, which ultimately creates disease and war.” There’s something to think about the next time you pop in some earbuds. Does listening to music make you feel more warlike and diseased? I’ve also been told that the different effects these frequencies have on our chakras. Songs tuned to 440 Hz work on the third eye chakra (the “thinking”) while 432 Hz stimulates the heart chakra (the “feeling”). Therefore, 432 Hz music increases the spiritual development of the listener. It may even have healing properties.

There are numerous organizations advocating a universal switch to 432 Hz, but that would involve upsetting worldwide standards, not to mention the construction and re-tuning of millions of musical instruments. Nice idea, but it ain’t gonna happen. If that idea stressed you out, please meditate on this special 432 Hz music.If many artists would have set their frequencies at 432 Hz like Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin or John Lennon (very strong presumptions still weigh on Imagine), their choices did not derive from an obsession for purity, perfection or the so-called superiority of one pitch over the other but only from a research, an artistic curiosity that experiments and decompartmentalizes the norms to better embrace their diversity.

globalnews.ca/news/4194106/440-hz-conspiracy-music/

The building is designed as a cultural and residential complex.[2] The original 1966 brick façade of the Kaispeicher A, formerly a warehouse, was retained at the base of the building. On top of this a footprint-matching superstructure rests on its own foundation exhibiting a glassy exterior and a wavy roof line. About one thousand glass windows are curved.[17] The building has 26 floors with the first eight floors within the brick façade. It reaches its highest point with 108 meters at the western side.[2] The footprint of the building measures 120,000 m2. A curved escalator from the main entrance at the east side connects the ground floor with an observation deck, the Plaza, at the 8th floor, the top of the brick section. The Plaza is accessible by the public. It offers a view of Hamburg and the Elbe. From the Plaza the foyer of the concert hall can be reached.

The Elbphilharmonie has three concert venues. The Great Concert Hall can accommodate 2,100 visitors whereby the performers are in the center of the hall surrounded by the audience in the vineyard style arrangement. The acoustics were designed by Yasuhisa Toyota who installed about 10,000 individually microshaped drywall plates to disperse sound waves.[17] The Great Concert Hall contains a pipe organ with 69 registers built by Klais Orgelbau. The Recital Hall is intended for the performance of recitals, chamber music and jazz concerts; it can hold an audience of 550 people.[2] In addition, there is the Kaistudio that allows for 170 visitors and is intended to serve educational activities.[17] The consultant for the scenography of the concert hall was Ducks Scéno.

The easternmost part of the building is rented by Westin as the Westin Hamburg Hotel that opened on 4 November 2016.[18] The hotel offers 244 rooms between the 9th and 20th floors. The lobby in the 8th floor can be accessed from the Plaza. The upper floors west of the concert hall accommodate 45 luxury apartments. The complex also houses conference rooms, restaurants, bars, and a spa. A parking garage for 433 cars is part of the building complex as well.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbphilharmonie

This portrait of Joseph Swan is from the Swan Collection of Tyne & Wear Museums, held at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Sir Joseph Wilson Swan was a British Physicist, Chemist and Inventor. Swan lived at Underhill, on Kells Lane North in Low Fell, Gateshead. It was here that he conducted most of his experiments in the large conservatory.

His investigations in electro-chemistry led to the construction of a motor electric meter, an electric fire-damp detector, a miners' electric safety lamp. Most importantly, Swan was also a pioneer in photographic procedures such as carbon printing.

It was Swan's demonstration of the light bulb at a lecture in Newcastle upon Tyne on 18 December 1878, before its later development by the American Thomas Edison that he is most famous for. Swan and Edison later collaborated in their work with the incandescent light bulb in 1883, when they founded the Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company, otherwise known as 'Ediswan.'

Many items held at Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums relating to Joseph Swan offer an amazing insight in to his work as an inventor and his place in the History of Scientific progression. This set offers a small selection from these collections.

This set has been produced in support of the British Science Festival 2013, held in Newcastle upon Tyne. You can find more information on the Festival here

(Copyright) We're happy for you to share these digital images within the spirit of The Commons. Please cite 'Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums' when reusing. Certain restrictions on high quality reproductions and commercial use of the original physical version apply though; if you're unsure please email archives@twmuseums.org.uk

Episodes from the History of Electricity.

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Benjamin Franklin (1750 - Lightning is electrical)

Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician (was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States), postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove, among other inventions.

In 1750 he published a proposal for an experiment to prove that lightning is electricity by flying a kite in a storm that appeared capable of becoming a lightning storm. On May 10, 1752, Thomas-François Dalibard of France conducted Franklin's experiment using a 40-foot-tall (12 m) iron rod instead of a kite, and he extracted electrical sparks from a cloud. On June 15 Franklin may possibly have conducted his well known kite experiment in Philadelphia, successfully extracting sparks from a cloud.

Franklin's electrical experiments led to his invention of the lightning rod.

Luigi Aloisio Galvani (1781 - "Animal Electricity")

Galvani was an Italian physician, physicist and philosopher who lived in Bologna.

With his experiment he discovered that the body of animals is powered by electrical impulses. Galvani named this newly discovered force “animal electricity,” and thus laid foundations for the modern fields of electrophysiology and neuroscience.

Galvani’s contemporaries - including Benjamin Franklin, whose work helped prove the existence of atmospheric electricity - had made great strides in understanding the nature of electricity and how to produce it. Inspired by Galvani’s discoveries, fellow Italian scientist Alessandro Volta would go on to invent, in 1800, the first electrical battery - the voltaic pile - which consisted of brine-soaked pieces of cardboard or cloth sandwiched between disks of different metals.

Thomas Alva Edison (1882 - First Power Station)

Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park", he was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of mass production and large-scale teamwork to the process of invention, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.

In 1878, Edison formed the Edison Electric Light Company (today as General Electric) in New York City with several financiers, including J. P. Morgan and the members of the Vanderbilt family. Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park. It was during this time that he said: "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles."

After devising a commercially viable electric light bulb on October 21, 1879, Edison patented a system for electricity distribution in 1880, which was essential to capitalize on the invention of the electric lamp.

The company established the first investor-owned electric utility in 1882 on Pearl Street Station, New York City. It was on September 4, 1882, that Edison switched on his Pearl Street generating station's electrical power distribution system, which provided 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers in lower Manhattan. Earlier in the year, in January 1882, he had switched on the first steam-generating power station at Holborn Viaduct in London. The DC supply system provided electricity supplies to street lamps and several private dwellings within a short distance of the station.

Edison was a prolific inventor, holding 1,093 US patents in his name. More significant than the number of Edison's patents was the widespread impact of his inventions: electric light and power utilities, sound recording, and motion pictures all established major new industries world-wide. Edison's inventions contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications. These included a stock ticker, a mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric car, electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures.

Nicola Tesla (1891 - Tesla Coil)

Tesla was a Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system.

Tesla moved to New York in 1884 and introduced himself to Thomas Edison. Although Tesla and Edison shared a mutual respect for one another, at least at first, Tesla challenged Edison’s claim that current could only flow in one direction (DC, direct current). Tesla claimed that energy was cyclic and could change direction (AC, alternating current), which would increase voltage levels across greater distances than Edison had pioneered. In 1888, Tesla went to work for Westinghouse in order to develop the alternating current system. Westinghouse and Tesla in their design for the first hydroelectric power plant in Niagara Falls.

Around 1891 Tesla invented the Tesla coil, which is an electrical resonant transformer circuit. It is used to produce high-voltage, low-current, high frequency alternating-current electricity. Tesla experimented with a number of different configurations consisting of two, or sometimes three, coupled resonant electric circuits. In 1899 Tesla moved to Colorado Springs, where he would have room for his high-voltage, high-frequency experiments: Tesla was sitting in his laboratory with his "Magnifying transmitter" generating millions of volts.

Tesla invented the first alternating current (AC) motor and developed AC generation and transmission technology, invented electric oscillators, meters, improved lights. He also experimented with X-rays and gave short-range demonstrations of radio communication.

Better seen LARGE ON BLACK. This is a part of my recent set of images Dancing in the mud.

In the end of May 2009 I was at a conference in Moscow. Walking near the Department of Physics of the Moscow State University I noticed a crowd of people and a rock band playing there. They celebrated the "Day of a Physicist." They were listening to the music, wanted to dance, but the crowd was too dense, there was no free space except a big puddle of dirty water few inches deep accumulated nearby after a powerful rain. What a great ballroom it was!!! They started dancing there, obviously enjoying it all... It was a bit weird, but also great, and I was envious of their young energy. I thought that as long as they can enjoy life doing physics and dancing in the mud, there is a future for young and talented people living there. Or so I hope.

This particular couple was dancing, and they ended by kissing standing in the middle of the mud, see the Comments and photos below.

The Corpus Clock, unveiled in 2008 by Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking

The Panthéon (Latin: pantheon, from Greek πάνθειον (ἱερόν) '(temple) to all the gods' is a building in the Latin Quarter in Paris, France. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve and to house the reliquary châsse containing her relics but, after many changes, now functions as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens. It is an early example of neo-classicism, with a façade modelled on the Pantheon in Rome, surmounted by a dome that owes some of its character to Bramante's Tempietto. Located in the 5th arrondissement on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, the Panthéon looks out over all of Paris. Designer Jacques-Germain Soufflot had the intention of combining the lightness and brightness of the Gothic cathedral with classical principles, but its role as a mausoleum required the great Gothic windows to be blocked. King Louis XV vowed in 1744 that if he recovered from his illness he would replace the ruined church of the Abbey of St Genevieve with an edifice worthy of the patron saint of Paris. He did recover, and entrusted Abel-François Poisson, marquis de Marigny with the fulfillment of his vow. In 1755, Marigny commissioned Jacques-Germain Soufflot to design the church, with construction beginning two years later. The overall design was that of a Greek cross with a massive portico of Corinthian columns. Its ambitious lines called for a vast building 110 metres long by 84 meters wide, and 83 metres high. No less vast was its crypt. Soufflot's masterstroke is concealed from casual view: the triple dome, each shell fitted within the others, permits a view through the oculus of the coffered inner dome of the second dome, frescoed by Antoine Gros with The Apotheosis of Saint Genevieve. The outermost dome is built of stone bound together with iron cramps and covered with lead sheathing, rather than of carpentry construction, as was the common French practice of the period. Concealed flying buttresses pass the massive weight of the triple construction outwards to the portico columns. The foundations were laid in 1758, but due to economic problems work proceeded slowly. In 1780, Soufflot died and was replaced by his student, Jean-Baptiste Rondelet. The re-modelled Abbey of St. Genevieve was finally completed in 1790, coinciding with the early stages of the French Revolution. Upon the death of the popular French orator and statesman Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau on 2 April 1791, the National Constituent Assembly, whose president had been Mirabeau, ordered that the building be changed from a church to a mausoleum for the interment of great Frenchmen, retaining Quatremère de Quincy to oversee the project. Mirabeau was the first person interred there, on 4 April 1791. Jean Guillaume Moitte created a pediment sculptural group The Fatherland crowning the heroic and civic virtues that was replaced upon the Bourbon Restoration with one by David d'Angers. Twice since then it has reverted to being a church, only to become again a meeting house dedicated to the great intellectuals of France. The cross of the dome, which was retained in compromise, is again visible during the current major restoration project. FOUCAULT PENDULUM: In 1851, physicist Léon Foucault demonstrated the rotation of the earth by constructing a 67-metre (220 ft) Foucault pendulum beneath the central dome. The original sphere from the pendulum was temporarily displayed at the Panthéon in the 1990s (starting in 1995) during renovations at the Musée des Arts et Métiers. The original pendulum was later returned to the Musée des Arts et Métiers, and a copy is now displayed at the Panthéon. It has been listed since 1920 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture. From 1906 to 1922 the Panthéon was the site of Auguste Rodin's famous sculpture The Thinker. In 2006, Ernesto Neto, a Brazilian artist, installed "Léviathan Thot", an anthropomorphic installation inspired by the biblical monster. The art installation was in the Panthéon from 15 September 2006 until 31 October for Paris's Autumn Festival. BURIAL PLACE: By burying its great people in the Panthéon, the nation acknowledges the honour it received from them. As such, interment here is severely restricted and is allowed only by a parliamentary act for "National Heroes". Similar high honours exist in Les Invalides for historical military leaders such as Napoléon, Turenne and Vauban. Among those buried in its necropolis are Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Émile Zola, Jean Moulin, Louis Braille, Jean Jaurès and Soufflot, its architect. In 1907 Marcellin Berthelot was buried with his wife Mme Sophie Berthelot. Marie Curie was interred in 1995. Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz and Germaine Tillion, heroines of the French resistance, were interred in 2015. The widely repeated story that the remains of Voltaire were stolen by religious fanatics in 1814 and thrown into a garbage heap is false. Such rumours resulted in the coffin being opened in 1897, which confirmed that his remains were still present. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthéon

*Copyright © 2010 Lélia Valduga, all rights reserved.

Catedral Metropolitana de la Ciudad de Mexico, dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Its construction began in 1570 and was considered finished only in 1813, including earthquakes and floods.

One curiosity is that we see in the center of the cathedral and its dome an immense pendulum attached to the center. This pendulum is measured on a chart attached to the floor which is the slope of the dome, since the structure is very heavy slowly sinking in the muddy ground of the bed of ancient Lake Texcoco on which the city was built.

In the school of Mad Physicist Airplane Design, I present my FW-190a3. Thank you to so many for so many ideas.

I'll try to get some better pictures this afternoon, but this should suffice for now.

Brickshelf gallery here.

Enjoy.

The #FlickrFriday #ABitOfOrder challenge

"Probably the simplest hypothesis... is that there may be a slow process of annihilation of matter."

- Sir Arthur Eddington; Physicist, Astronomer, Philosopher 1882-1944

____________________________________________

We live in a highly ordered world. That unremarkable statement may seem to reflect our obsession with neatness, organisation and timeliness. However let's look at what physics has to say about what it believes order actually is.

Physics, among other things, introduces the term entropy to express how ordered a system is. Mathematically speaking, it is the number of possible configurations of its component parts which allow the system to exist at all, divided by the total number of possible ways those parts may be configured. Low entropy therefore describes a high degree of order. Physicists frequently explain abstract ideas like this by reference to simple situations so let's do so.

Consider going to the seaside, packing damp sand into a bucket, smartly inverting it onto the beach, and removing the bucket in the time honoured fashion. We have made a sandcastle, a simple structure (or system) which can only exist if the grains of sand are configured in a limited number of ways. There are many more ways in which those grains may be arranged, the vast majority of them being unremarkable piles of sand, each pile looking much like all the others. A small number of configurations capable of creating a system divided by a much larger possible number of configurations results in a fraction with a small number on top and a much larger number beneath. That would be a small number, representing low entropy which means a high degree of order.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics provides that the entropy of an isolated system, left alone, cannot decrease. Put another way, a system cannot become more organised (or ordered) than it was when we started observing it. Although The Second Law allows the possibility that a system would remain the same throughout time, in practice entropy always increases, accounting for the fact that things decay, wear out, or fall apart. Increasing entropy represents reducing order. Spontaneous repair does not happen without some kind of intervention, an example of which could be an injury which heals. Healing requires an input of resources which we may regard as energy.

Returning to our sandcastle, as the day progresses, its sand dries, reducing adhesion. Grains start to fall or are blown away causing the structure to lose shape. Its entropy increases, shown by it becoming an unremarkable pile of sand, increasingly indistinguishable from any other sand pile. Its entropy continues to increase, ultimately matching that of the even higher entropy beach.

Now let's extrapolate from sandcastles to The Universe. Nobody can accuse me of lack of ambition! Recall that, from The Second Law of Thermodynamics, Entropy increases as time passes. Consider an abandoned car rusting away into dust; a fallen tree being converted to soil through consumption by fungi; a building falling into disrepair; a small space rock entering our atmosphere and burning up, delighting observers as it presents itself as a shooting star while scattering its atoms among our atmosphere; two asteroids colliding, smashing each other into bits; a comet leaving a trail of dust illuminated by The Sun; and a star exploding in a supernova event, spreading its matter over huge distances. All exemplify increasing entropy. Back on Earth, many of us earn our crusts repairing what we (or more accurately, The Second Law of Thermodynamics) break or wear out. Tradesmen (and DIY stores) earn their livings courtesy of The Second Law and as they can never reverse it, they will always be in business!

This all leads us to the concept of The Arrow of Time created by the physicist Sir Arthur Eddington. When The Arrow points to the future, Eddington, applying The Second Law, expects greater randomness or disorder; in other words, higher entropy than now. Recall our sandcastle which we may now regard as a metaphor for the prediction that in about 10 trillion years time the galaxies we may assume will live for all time will be gone. All that will be left will be atomic and subatomic particles (including particles which had once combined to form the extremely low entropy us), randomly moving around in unimaginably vast nothingness, so vast that the probability of those particles ever again interacting to create anything at all is, functionally speaking, zero. That's the bleakest of predictions of our destiny but 10 trillion years is a long time, maybe even long enough for my football team to win something meaningful. Or perhaps not, but anyway, there's no need to cancel your Flickr Pro subs just yet.

Conversely, when The Arrow points to the past we see a more ordered world and universe. We might even imagine our sandcastle rebuilding itself from the pile of sand it had become. Go back far enough and we encounter God creating Heaven and Earth, or, according to your belief, the Big Bang when scientists tell us The Universe was simple and highly ordered.

A photo of a disintegrating watch overlaid on Genesis 1 as recorded in an old Bible therefore seems to me to be an apt metaphor for The Arrow of Time. It was created by duplicating and resizing twice a single photo of a watch with liquefying applied through Photoshop and various bits deleted and cloned to represent disintegration as time passes. Mould marks on the page and creases are faintly visible despite the increased saturation I applied to add colour to the image. They demonstrate increasing entropy in themselves.

Caroline Nowlan, atmospheric physicist at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, speaks during a briefing on NASA’s TEMPO (Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution) instrument, Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington. NASA’s TEMPO instrument, the first Earth Venture Instrument mission, will measure air pollution across North America from Mexico City to the Canadian oil sands and from the Atlantic to the Pacific hourly and at a high spatial resolution. A partnership between NASA and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, TEMPO will launch on a commercial satellite to geostationary orbit as early as April. Photo Credit: (NASA/Joel Kowsky)

Benny's sister Penny is a theoretical nuclear physicist who dreams of putting her theory of superpower mini-figure genes to the test. Enter Billy Blacktron: Penny's "willing" test subject for the experiment, which will expose increasing amounts of x-ray radiation to poor (I mean brave) Billy... they would be using gamma radiation, but fellow scientist Dr. Banner beat her to that test. Better hurry, Penny, I think your "voluntary" test subject is waking up...

Halloween 2003 will live forever in the annals of solar history. In the space of two weeks centred around the spooky celebration, solar physicists witnessed the most sustained bout of solar activity since satellites took to the skies.

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) was monitoring it all. The ultraviolet telescope captured the climax of activity on 4 November 2003, showing a blistering solar flare bursting from active region 10486 at 19:29 GMT. Solar flares are the near-instantaneous release of energy caused by a loop of magnetism snapping into a more stable configuration.

In this process, the energy of up to a thousand billion Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs can be released in just a few minutes. That release is seen here. The horizontal white streak is where the camera has been blinded by the brightness of the flare.

Things began when a giant sunspot, fully ten times the diameter of Earth, hove into view around the western limb of the Sun in late October. It was followed by another, equally large, spot and together they moved across the face of the Sun generating flares on an almost daily basis. This image shows the second spot’s parting volley.

Solar flares are classed according to the energy they release at X-ray wavelengths. There are three major categories: C, M and X, further divided into 10 subclasses. M1 flares are ten times more powerful than C1, and X1 flares are ten times more powerful than M1 flares, or 100 times more powerful than C1.

This 2003 flare was so powerful that it broke right through the top of the X-class range, which is usually given as X10. Analysis showed that it clocked in at X28, making it 28 times more powerful than an X1.

A billion tonnes or so of the solar atmosphere was propelled into space at a speed of 2300 km/s – a staggering 8.2 million km/h.

Credit: ESA/NASA