World Science Festival 2012 Hey NYC folks, looking for something to tickle your neurons this weekend, expand your knowledge horizons, or give you brain fodder for your next date so you can see if he/she shares your love for science while simulataneously impressing them with your worldly nouveau-Renaissance intellect? The World Science Festival is all over town today through Sunday (June 3). There will be events covering everything from neuroscience to cosmology, panels and salons galore (the French intellectual kind, not the hair kind), family-friendly hands-on events for the kids, and of course a good opportunity to see Alan Alda or Levar Burton in public … because when do you really get the chance to do that? Not in NYC? Rest easy, there’s a whole mess of webcasts to follow from the comfort of your own pants-optional home. Go! Get out there and learn.
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World Science Festival 2012

Hey NYC folks, looking for something to tickle your neurons this weekend, expand your knowledge horizons, or give you brain fodder for your next date so you can see if he/she shares your love for science while simulataneously impressing them with your worldly nouveau-Renaissance intellect? The World Science Festival is all over town today through Sunday (June 3).

There will be events covering everything from neuroscience to cosmology, panels and salons galore (the French intellectual kind, not the hair kind), family-friendly hands-on events for the kids, and of course a good opportunity to see Alan Alda or Levar Burton in public … because when do you really get the chance to do that?

Not in NYC? Rest easy, there’s a whole mess of webcasts to follow from the comfort of your own pants-optional home.

Go! Get out there and learn.

Manhattanhenge As Neil deGrasse Tyson ponders: “What will future civilizations think of Manhattan Island when they dig it up and find a carefully laid out network of streets and avenues?” If they don’t assume aliens, they might just think there was some astronomy behind NYC’s layout. I mean, we have (correctly) assumed the same for Stonehenge … why not Manhattan? Twice a year on either side of the summer solstice, the Manhattan street grid lines up precisely with the setting sun, framing the glowing orb with towering steel and concrete, and creating even more traffic than normal. Last night’s sighting was a washout due to weather, but there will be another opportunity tonight at 8:16 PM to see the marvel of Manhattanhenge. The path of the sun creeps north and south along with the changing seasons due to the tilt of the Earth on its axis and its orbit around the sun. The 30 degree shift of the Manhattan street grid (and the fact that the island offers uninterrupted horizon on its west side) allow this unique urban view of the sun, perhaps unequaled around the world. NYC followers, I know you’re out there. Grab a camera and get out there (and feel free to tweet me any good pics)! If the weather messes you up again, well … I guess you can just stare at the 2011 photo above really hard.  (More info at the Hayden Planetarium, photo above by ejpphoto on Flickr)
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Manhattanhenge

As Neil deGrasse Tyson ponders:

“What will future civilizations think of Manhattan Island when they dig it up and find a carefully laid out network of streets and avenues?”

If they don’t assume aliens, they might just think there was some astronomy behind NYC’s layout. I mean, we have (correctly) assumed the same for Stonehenge … why not Manhattan?

Twice a year on either side of the summer solstice, the Manhattan street grid lines up precisely with the setting sun, framing the glowing orb with towering steel and concrete, and creating even more traffic than normal. Last night’s sighting was a washout due to weather, but there will be another opportunity tonight at 8:16 PM to see the marvel of Manhattanhenge.

The path of the sun creeps north and south along with the changing seasons due to the tilt of the Earth on its axis and its orbit around the sun. The 30 degree shift of the Manhattan street grid (and the fact that the island offers uninterrupted horizon on its west side) allow this unique urban view of the sun, perhaps unequaled around the world.

NYC followers, I know you’re out there. Grab a camera and get out there (and feel free to tweet me any good pics)! If the weather messes you up again, well … I guess you can just stare at the 2011 photo above really hard. 


(More info at the Hayden Planetarium, photo above by ejpphoto on Flickr)

Source: haydenplanetarium.org

Space Program: Mars

Mars on the Upper East Side?

Tom Sachs is a sculptor and artist, perhaps best known for his playful takes on cultural icons like the Hermès Hand Grenade and the Tiffany Glock. From May 16 - June 17, he’ll be simulating a Mars mission at the Park Avenue Armory.

Of course, this won’t be like any other Mars sim you’ve ever seen. These young, attractive astronauts will be surrounded by an environment created by Sachs, from vehicles to space suits to exercise facilities. The fourteen astronauts will man the display full time, regularly playing out launch, landing and other scenarios.

I think it’s a very cool exploration of how our culture has turned space missions into pop icons, blurring the distinctions between their intent (scientific missions) and their legacy (real-life science fiction). In our minds, decades after they occurred, the Apollo missions might be closer to 2001 than they are to reality.

If you can’t make it to the show, don’t miss his other videos, like this Al Green-influenced lunar mission. Also, I want those NASA hi-tops. Now.

(via Tom Sachs - Space Program: Mars)

Source: tomsachsmars.com

April “Pink Moon” rises behind New York City The “Pink Moon” is the traditional name for the first full moon in April (because theoretically, there could be two in a given month of a year). It’s named for the appearance of the wild ground flox, an early Spring wildflower. If you’d like to experience the moon’s phase for every day in 2012, may I recommend this video? Bonus: Did you see NASA’s amazing illumination of the Moon’s South Pole yesterday? (ᔥ PhotoBlog)
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April “Pink Moon” rises behind New York City

The “Pink Moon” is the traditional name for the first full moon in April (because theoretically, there could be two in a given month of a year). It’s named for the appearance of the wild ground flox, an early Spring wildflower.

If you’d like to experience the moon’s phase for every day in 2012, may I recommend this video?

Bonus: Did you see NASA’s amazing illumination of the Moon’s South Pole yesterday?

(ᔥ PhotoBlog)

Source: MSN

The Math Evident In NYC Water Towers: The distance between the metal bands holding the cylindrical structure together decreases from top to bottom because the pressure the water exerts increases with depth. The top band only needs to fight against the water at the very top of the tower but the bottom bands have to hold the entire volume from bursting out. (via kottke.org)
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The Math Evident In NYC Water Towers:

The distance between the metal bands holding the cylindrical structure together decreases from top to bottom because the pressure the water exerts increases with depth. The top band only needs to fight against the water at the very top of the tower but the bottom bands have to hold the entire volume from bursting out.

(via kottke.org)

Source: kottke.org

IBM Puts On A Big Data Viz Show, Streaming Real-Time Data About NYC 

But it was still surprising to wander down Broadway late last week and find a 123 x 12 foot digital wall sloping down below street level displaying what looked like a bathtub’s worth of blue LED bubbles draining into the parking garage.

That’s but one image that sparkles across this massive screen, mounted in conjunction with an exhibit celebrating IBM’s 100th anniversary, which visualizes, in real time, the live data streaming from the systems surrounding the exhibit, from traffic on Broadway, to solar energy, to credit card fraud, to air quality—to the amount of water that is systematically leaking from New York’s aqueduct system.

(via Co. Design)

Source: fastcodesign.com

How an Algorithm Helped Arrange the Names on the 9/11 Memorial: The memorial’s arrangement preserves, for instance, the terrible blow suffered by the investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald. Before the morning of September 11, the firm’s headquarters occupied several floors high in the North Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC). In the first of the terrorist attacks of that day, a hijacked airliner struck the North Tower, just below Cantor’s offices. The firm was devastated; 658 employees died in the attack, along with 46 contractors, food-service workers, consultants and visitors.Although no heading identifies them as such, the 704 names of those killed at Cantor Fitzgerald appear together on the memorial. Cantor’s loss was so great that its portion of the memorial surrounds almost half of the north pool. Within that grouping, as elsewhere on the memorial, the placement of names also reflects numerous other social and professional connections, thanks to input from families and co-workers and some heavy lifting by a custom-built computer algorithm. (via Scientific American)
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How an Algorithm Helped Arrange the Names on the 9/11 Memorial:

The memorial’s arrangement preserves, for instance, the terrible blow suffered by the investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald. Before the morning of September 11, the firm’s headquarters occupied several floors high in the North Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC). In the first of the terrorist attacks of that day, a hijacked airliner struck the North Tower, just below Cantor’s offices. The firm was devastated; 658 employees died in the attack, along with 46 contractors, food-service workers, consultants and visitors.

Although no heading identifies them as such, the 704 names of those killed at Cantor Fitzgerald appear together on the memorial. Cantor’s loss was so great that its portion of the memorial surrounds almost half of the north pool. Within that grouping, as elsewhere on the memorial, the placement of names also reflects numerous other social and professional connections, thanks to input from families and co-workers and some heavy lifting by a custom-built computer algorithm.

(via Scientific American)

Source: scientificamerican.com