fivefiftyfive

hypn:

////KINECT SHAPES BY ALEXANDRE LE GUILLOU////

Playing with vvvv, kinect and hands gestures to create colorful shapes. Work in progress. You can see more pics here

Using nothing but soap and a macro lens, Janet Waters photographs mesmerizing patterns on colored backdrops.

But she hasn’t stopped there, she’s using her Flickr to create a “visual library” for all of her University students. Packed with experimental photo projects galore, her stream is well worth a look. 

Macro Photography Series of Colorful Bubbles and Foam

via Zeutch 

(Source: photojojo)

f-l-e-u-r-d-e-l-y-s:

The Light of Democracy, 1999.By Jozef Sedlák

jtotheizzoe:

Algorithmic Drawing

Did you catch Vi Hart’s ode to serendipitous mathematical doodling yesterday? If not, go watch it. Capturing that sort of spontaneity and surprising yourself with mathematics … can you think of a better way to learn?

I just love how serendipitous the internet is. As a result of that post, Norman Shapiro pointed me to his huge collection of Algorithmic Drawings here on Tumblr. Go give him a follow and check out his full collection. He hand draws all the geometric motifs, following few rules other than exploring the limits of the pattern that has come to him. It’s both whimsical and highly ordered at the same time and I can’t get enough of them.

I think it’s time to start doodling in the margins, folks. You never know what might come of it.

darksilenceinsuburbia:

Steven Quinn.

http://stevenquinn.wordpress.com/

decaturjim:

3D Body Parts

Victoria Cartright is a “designer, 3D artist, illustrator, and general creator of images” who has created these gorgeous three-dimensional pieces of various anatomical organs.  Check out the full range at her website. 

mrdiv:

cycloid

ikenbot:

Decades Old Mystery of Buckyballs Cracked

After exploring for 25-years, scientists have solved the question of how the iconic family of caged-carbon molecules known as buckyballs form.

The results from the Florida State University and the National Science Foundation-supported National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, or MagLab, in Tallahassee, Fla., shed fundamental light on the self-assembly of carbon networks. The findings should have important implications for carbon nanotechnology and provide insight into the origin of space fullerenes, which are found throughout the Universe.

Many people know the buckyball, also know as fullerene by scientists, molecule, C60, from the covers of their school chemistry books. Indeed, the molecule represents the iconic image of “chemistry.” But how these often highly symmetric, beautiful molecules with extremely fascinating properties form in the first place has been a mystery. Despite worldwide investigation since the 1985 discovery of C60, fullerene has kept its secrets. How? It’s born under highly energetic conditions and grows ultra fast.

“The difficulty with fullerene formation is that the process is literally over in a flash – it’s next to impossible to see how the magic trick of their growth was performed,” says Paul Dunk, lead author of the work.

In the study, published in Nature Communications at the end of May, the scientists describe their ingenious approach to testing how fullerenes grow. “We started with a paste of pre-existing fullerene molecules mixed with carbon and helium, shot it with a laser, and instead of destroying the fullerenes we were surprised to find they’d actually grown.” The fullerenes were able to absorb and incorporate carbon from the surrounding gas.

—

The buckyball research results will be important for understanding fullerene formation in extraterrestrial environments. Recent reports by NASA showed that crystals of C60 are in orbit around distant suns. This suggests that fullerenes may be more common in the Universe than we thought.

“The results of our study will surely be extremely valuable in deciphering fullerene formation in extraterrestrial environments,” said FSU’s Harry Kroto, a Nobel Prize winner for the discovery of C60 and co-author of the current study.

Full Article

fuckyeahfluiddynamics:

When a falling liquid jet hits a horizontal impacter, it is deflected into a sheet. The shape of the sheet is dependent upon the velocity of the jet and the viscosity of the fluid. At sufficiently high speeds the sheet will be circular; at lower speeds it may sag into a bell-shape. The circular sheets can also develop an instability that causes them to become polygonal, as shown in the photos above. The fluid then flows out along the sheet, into and along the rim, and then spouts outward in jets at the polygon’s corners. For some conditions, the jets at the corners even form a sort of fluid chain (top photo). (Photo credit: R. Buckingham and J. W. M. Bush; via 14-billion-years-later) 

terrestrial-noesis:

Nasca Lines, Peru

Photos by Robert Clark

hypna:

Noisy Jelly: Gelatin Achieves Powers of Sound

What if your musical instrument were gelatinous? Edible?

“Noisy Jelly” is the latest project to imagine that scenario. Thanks to the capacitive quality of gelatin, you can mix up a set of colored instruments that jiggle when you touch them. 

Check out the terrific video:

Aeon by Timo Vaittinen

leahladyfeathers:

stellar