Phantomimic's Blog

Watch the Earth from Space!

5/9/2014

The folks at NASA set up a few streaming video cameras in the International Space Station, so you can watch a video of the Earth as viewed from Space in real time as the station orbits around the Earth (click on the picture below). You can also check the map to see where in its orbit the station is. If it's in the dark side of the Earth the screen will be black. If it's changing from one camera to the other the screen will be gray momentarily. If you watch long enough you will be able to see the Earth light up or get dark as the station goes from sunrise to sunset and back!

If you want to see more about space, check one of my old posts about gravity that features astronaut Chris Hadfield playing a version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity in the space station!

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Bikers Against Child Abuse (BACA)

4/23/2014

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This brought a tear to my eye. Leader-clad motorcyclists with tattoos and helmets are the least thing you would associate with preventing child abuse. But this group, BACA (Bikers Against Child Abuse) does just that.

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Gobbling at Turkeys!

10/15/2013

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Animals don't have language in the formal sense with letters, words, grammar, and syntax, but you sort of wonder what these turkeys perceived this guy to be saying!

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Ground Control to Mayor Tom: Is There No Gravity in Space?

5/19/2013

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Astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded a fantastic version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity while circling the Earth in the International Space Station. While I like the music and the views of the Earth from space, this video got me thinking about a very common mistake that people make when they see videos of objects or people floating inside the space station. This is the notion that this happens because there is no gravity. The confusion is further exacerbated because this situation is often referred to as “zero g.” In today’s blog we will see why this is not the case.

To understand what is going on in space let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine that you are standing on top of a high diving platform holding a pencil. As you jump from the platform you let go of the pencil and for a few seconds before you hit the water the pencil will appear to “float” next to you. Is the pencil in this situation experiencing no gravity? Of course not, the pencil is falling alongside you. Now consider this. Suppose in the instant you jump and let go of the pencil a room magically materializes around you in such a way that you are not in contact with any of its surfaces. This room is falling at the same speed you and the pencil are falling, but the room has a camera in a corner pointed towards you. During those few seconds before the room and you hit the water, the camera will record you and the pencil apparently floating in the middle of the room. An observer who watches the camera footage of those few seconds migt conclude that you and the pencil are floating impervious to gravity, but this is not true: you are falling.

This situation is identical to what you see in the video of Chris’s guitar spinning in space and him floating next to it. Chris and his guitar inside the International Space Station are no more floating or impervious to gravity than you and the pencil would be inside that hypothetical room. The reason astronauts appear to float is that (as in the example of the room) they are falling towards the Earth along with the space station around them.

But if this is true, why doesn’t the space station crash and burn?

The reason is that even though it is falling towards Earth, the space station is moving at the right speed parallel to Earth’s surface. If the surface of the Earth were flat the space station would eventually hit the ground. However, because the Earth is round it curves as the station falls, and the speed of the station is carefully controlled to maintain this balance. As a result of this the space station maintains a roughly constant distance from the Earth’s surface even though it is falling towards it.

“Here am I floating
round my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing left to do.”

So you see, in the realm of the space station gravity is alive and well. Contrary to the song’s lyrics, the space station and its singing astronaut are not “floating,” they are falling towards Earth, but their speed and direction is such that they never reach the ground.

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How to Piss off a Frog

2/16/2013

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When you use technology to have fun with nature, it can backfire!

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It doesn't get more insignificant than this!

2/8/2013

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A follow up to my Pale Blue Dot post during the past holidays.

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Extreme Sheepherding!

1/25/2013

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This is a rare and difficult form of art due to the raw material and the effort involved in molding it. Each of those dots is a sheep!

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Why Fiction?

1/25/2013

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I recently had the great pleasure of attending a stage concert production of the musical Hairspray in honor of the 25th anniversary of the cult classic movie on which the musical is based. The music was performed by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and John Waters, author of the film and the musical, served as narrator. In between the musical numbers Waters recounted tales of his experiences growing up in the segregated city of Baltimore in the sixties, including the racial tensions which served as inspiration for the storyline. Just before the climax of Hairspray where the Corny Collins Show becomes open both to whites and blacks alike, Waters said that this event was inspired by what had happened at a real show in Baltimore called the Buddy Deane Show. A daring group of black and white youths crashed one of the white-only dancing days and succeeded in briefly integrating the show, but sadly as a result of this it was taken off the air. However, Waters then added that this was a movie and who needed reality anyway? So he had proceeded to write the happy ending that never happened.

Water’s story got me thinking about why we write fiction.

The fiction of the type portrayed in Hairspray is aspirational. It allows us to imagine a better future when we are stuck in seemingly hopeless situations. Sometimes in this “vale of tears” the only thing that keeps us going is our dreams.

At other times fiction is used to communicate teachings or experiences intended to inspire. My book The Sun Zebra is this type of fiction. It is not real in the sense that the right things always happen at the right time, in the right way, and for the right reasons. We know reality seldom works like this, but we use approaches like these to get the point across to the reader.

Fiction also allows us to stir “stir things up.” It allows us to introduce chaos into our otherwise orderly world and then explore how people react to it and analyze the consequences. In my next book of short stories, entitled Spirit Women, half of the stories involve the supernatural. Do I believe in the supernatural? No, but I use it as a tool to support the themes of the stories.

Finally, fiction is used for entertainment. I believe this is because many people are all too well acquainted with the tedium of their predictable everyday lives and they want to experience something different. Reality is often boring and life would be so much more interesting if we could fly through the air, open portals to different dimensions, conjure spirits, or battle monsters. Being unable to experience these things in the real world we seek to experience them in the imaginary realms of books, movies, or games.

Regardless of the reason we write it, what fiction with no doubt has is the power to endure. When time has gone by and reality has been forgotten, it is the fiction that is remembered. Nowadays hardly anyone remembers the Buddy Deane Show and the unsuccessful attempt at desegregating it. But for the past 25 years a courageous group of white and black teenagers has battled the forces of obscurantism and triumphed thousands of times successfully desegregating the Corny Collins Show at each performance of Hairspray. You may ask: why is this? The answer is:

Cause you can’t stop
The motion of the ocean
Or the rain from above
You can try to stop the paradise
We're dreaming of
But you cannot stop the rhythm
Of two hearts in love to stay
Cause you can’t stop the beat!

Photo credit: FatherDalton / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

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