Vizualization of a quantum field theory calculation showing virtual particles in the quantum vacuum (by Derek Leinweber).
(By Daniel Roland/AFP in Gaiberg near Heidelberg, 20 March 2015.)
Johannes de Sacrobosco: Sphæra Mundi, c.1230 CE, chapter IV.
(Edition Venice 1482)
Cum autem luna fuerit in capite vel in cauda draconis vel prope infra metas et in coniunctione cum sole, tunc corpus lunare interponetur inter aspectum nostrum et corpus solare, unde obumbrabit nobis claritatem solis. Et ita sol patietur eclipsim, non quia deficit a lumine sed quia deficit nobis propter interpositionem lune inter aspectum nostrum et solem. Ex hiis patet quod semper debet esse eclipsis solis in coniunctione sive in novilunio. Notandum etiam quod quando est eclipsis lune, est eclipsis in omni terra. Sed quando est eclipsis solis, nequaquam, immo in uno climate est eclipsis, in alio non, quod contingit propter diversitatem aspectus in diversis climatibus. Unde Virgilius elegantissime naturam utriusque eclipsis sub compendio tetigit dicens, "Defectus lune varios solisque labores." Read More »
Omnia tibi felicia
mosaic from Dougga, 4th century CE, Musée national du Bardo, Tunis,
looted by islamic terrorists March 18, 2015.
Mesopotamian hipster with original design of the Apple iWatch and iCone. (c.715 BCE, Musée du Louvre)
"Trust", nano sculpture by Jonty Hurwitz, c. 80 x 100 x 20 microns.
World's smallest sculpture accidentally crushed by photographer.
(12 March 2015) Jonty Hurwitz, from Hampshire, uses a high-tech process called nano-painting to craft detailed representations of the human form in miniature. Some of his pieces are just 100 microns tall and so tiny that they cannot be seen by the human eye without a microscope. Some are small enough to fit inside the eye of a needle, while others can be balanced on a single human hair. It was one of these fragile artworks, 'Trust', that is sadly no longer with us.
“I went off to have the original sculpture photographed so I found a laboratory with an electron microscope and the photographic technology,” Hurwitz told the Daily Mail. “The technician went to change the orientation and then for the next half an hour we were looking for the piece through the lens. Eventually I noticed there was a fingerprint exactly where the sculpture used to be and I was like ‘Man, you have just destroyed one of the smallest art pieces ever made’. I slightly freaked out.” Read More »
Laputa above the clouds in the Atacama desert.
Star cluster NGC 6193 and nebula NGC 6188
(by European Southern Observatory, Chile, 11 March 2015)
Download fullsize original, 17388 x 18660 pixel, 808.7 MB:
eso1510a.tif
(Lima, Peru, March 11, 2015) Incendio consumió archivo histórico de Universidad San Marcos. Fuego consumió parte del Colegio Real, casona colonial donde funciona un centro cultural y archivo de la "Decana de América".
Ishtar, Mesopotamian goddess of the night, of wisdom, love, war, and sex. (Burney Relief, c.1750 BCE, now British Museum)
"I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,
I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down,
and will let the dead go up to eat the living!
And the dead will outnumber the living!”
-- Ishtar (Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet VI)
... now, you wicked brutes of ISIS, expect the zombie apocalypse!
The remains of the ancient Parthian city of Hatra, a 2,000-year-old site in northern Iraq which officials in Baghdad reports is being demolished by Islamic State.
22 November 1963: Aldous Huxley, author of The Doors of Perception, instructs his wife to administer him with LSD on his deathbed, and passes away "very, very gently". ("Professor David Nutt: Why I think the terminally ill should take LSD", The Independent, 6 March 2015)
