What is this place?
Polytechnic is the online home of Garrett Coakley.
It tends to focus on such geekery as web development, technology, music, film, and photography.
A proud member of Oxfordbloggers.com.
Elsewhere
Other places I can be found on the web.
- Follow me on twitter
- See my photography on flickr
- Current listening on last.fm
- What I’m linking to on del.icio.us
- My tumblr powered scrapbook of miscellanea
Tag Archives: science
Found functions
I’ve linked to this site via delicious and twitter but I really had to publish something here too, it deserves to be seen by as many people as possible. Found Functions is a short series of photographs by Nikki Graziano that overlay mathematical functions and graphs over shapes in nature. Such a simple idea but executed beautifully: what [...]
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Keep libel laws out of science
Simon Singh is currently being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association. Sense About Science has launched a campaign asking for reform of the English libel system so that it does not stifle scientific debate and journalism in general. Please sign the statement of support and encourage others to join the campaign. This is an issue that affects anyone who cares about science, journalism and free speech.
Space Shuttle launch as seen from the air
It's all been a bit space based round here recently, but this video is too good not to share, a Shuttle launch caught on video from an Air Canada flight.
Hat tip: 37 Signals
What we look like from out there
Sometimes you see things that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
The Deep Impact spacecraft, with it's original mission complete and now undertaking science under the EPOXI moniker, turned it's cameras back towards the Earth from 50 million kilometers away and over the course of several hours caught The Moon transiting The Earth!
Phil Plait sums it up beautifully:
While there is science galore in these animations, I think their real impact is the visceral one from simply seeing them. As Carl Sagan once said: everyone you have ever met, every human who has lived and died, lived out their lives on that blue ball. And yet here we are, in the 21st century, plains apes allowed to evolve and satiate their curiosity, now with the ability to lob metal proxies into deep space, look back, and see ourselves. Science. I love this stuff.
The Quarter Mile Groove