The Publishing Engine

Am I unreasonably excited that my favorite webcomic, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, is going to be published as a book? No. For those of you familiar with the funny, hyper-referential, quirky work of Sydney Padua, my excitement would be considered entirely reasonable in its grandiosity.

Now it my great pleasure to announce that this humble comic has been elevated to the PANTHEON one might say, actually, one would definitely say, because Pantheon Bookshas heard your pleas (a lot more effectively than I have it seems) and we are going to do Lovelace and Babbage: The Papery Thing with Ink On!

If you were wondering what to get me for my birthday next year. . .

Just right

The Three Bears – Note the thermodynamic impossibility of the depicted bowls.

Goldilocks & The Three Bears is more than a bizarre endorsement of woodland home invasion. It’s also a thermodynamic riddle that has befuddled the wisest among us1. One word – porridge.

The facts of the case are these. At the initial time point (t0), all Three Bears thought their porridge was too hot. At the second time point (t1), when Goldilocks gets there, the three bowls are at different temperatures (TPB > TBB > TMB). No one cares about the porridge’s temperature at the final time point (tf), as one doesn’t after one’s home has obviously been broken and/or entered. Continue reading “Just right”

The Art of Science – Patterned by Nature

A seamless blend of art, science, nature and technology, this sculptural installation for the new Nature Research Center, a part of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, is an absolute stunner.

The piece, a collaboration among engineers, artists and designers, explores the “abstraction of nature’s infinite complexity into patterns through the scientific process, and through our perceptions. It brings to light the similarity of patterns in our universe, across all scales of space and time.”

A “ribbon” made of 3,600 tiles of LCD glass 10 feet wide and 90 feet long, the sculpture winds through the five-story atrium of the research center.  Animations are created by varying the transparency of each piece of glass.

A program of twenty  patterns plays continuously on the tiles, ranging from clouds to rain  to colonies of bacteria to flocking birds to cuttlefish skin to pulsating black holes. The programs were created through a combination of software modeling of natural phenomena and actual footage.  A soundtrack accompanies the animations on the ribbon, giving visitors clues to the identity of the pixellated movements. In addition, two screens show high-resolution imagery and text revealing the content on the ribbon at any moment.

The video is well worth your four minutes.  I can’t wait to go to North Carolina for Science Online 2013 and see it in person.

Getting all Artsty Fartsy

We’d like to welcome The Finch & Pea‘s new Art Curator, Michele Banks. Michele is a talented artist, an irrepressible science enthusiast, and generally a joy to be around. In short, our kind of people.

Michele will be bringing us art that has been inspired by science, inspires us to think about science, and is just fun to look at.

Ready your eyeballs for a feast of awesome.

The Phone Truck

What happens when a classic toy outlasts the culture it references?

I got to see that happen this morning. My youngest was dragging this classic toy across the floor by its string, like it’s creator intended. As she traipsed, she intoned, “Phone! Truck! Phone! Truck!”

Like most parents, we were confused. Now, we were even more confused. Continue reading “The Phone Truck”