messenger's orbit around mercury

in honor of the MESSENGER space craft successfully maneuvering into orbit around mercury this week, i thought i'd share a blast from the past from sixty symbols. if i remember right, this one one of first videos i recorded with brady :)

what confuses physicists?

sixty symbols continues its series of videos answering viewers' questions. in this installment we were asked "what parts of physics confuse you?" the short answer: a lot!

why your star sign is wrong

mike shares some very nice explanations in this video from sixty symbols.

Internet Stars: The Secret Life of Sixty Symbols

for anyone who happens to be near nottingham, UK thursday evening, the creator of sixty symbols and other interesting video projects at the university of nottingham, brady haran, will be giving a public lecture. i've been advised (warned?) that i should be "worried" about the potentially embarrassing out-takes he will be showing. oh dear. so if you go, please do let me know how silly i come across! thank you.


Internet Stars: The Secret Life of Sixty Symbols

Brady Haran

Thursday 27th January 2011

ABSTRACT: A small band of scientists from Nottingham have become minor celebrities on YouTube. But how did it happen? And were there problems along the way? Film-maker Brady Haran is the man behind Sixty Symbols (physics and astronomy) and the Periodic Table of Videos (chemistry). In this lecture he will take you behind the scenes on both projects. He'll discuss how the films are made and share some embarrassing 'out- takes' that prove scientists are only human!

6-7 pm
Maths & Physics Building (B1)
University of Nottingham
University Park Campus
Nottingham

antihydrogen

its nice to hear my old colleagues talk about interesting things! here the folks of sixty symbols talk about an experiment at CERN that is "trapping" antihydrogen.

arsenice and old life

you may have heard the buzz around NASA's press release last week regarding the bacteria found in california's mono lake which can build DNA using arsenic instead of the typically used ingredient phosphorus?

brady haran's university of nottingham project, periodic table of videos has tackled the topic in a very interesting way. watch below to learn more!

what happens if black holes collide?

a new video from sixty symbols is up: what happens if black holes collide?

what are special and general relatvity?

the newest installment of sixty symbols shows a discussion of the difference between special and general relativity. brady also asks what physical constant we might change if given the opportunity.

sixty symbols: star classification

our sun is classified as a "G2V" star, but what does that mean? here's a new sixty symbols video to explain how we classify stars.

nobel prize in physics 2010: playing with tape!

this year's nobel prize in physics has been awarded to two scientists based in the UK: andre geim and 36 year old konstantin novoselov "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene."

of course, brady was prepared for the announcement this morning, and put together a nice sixty symbols video explaining the science behind this year's award.



i like that such a simple idea, that was essentially "let's stick tape to pencil lead and see how thin a layer we can pull off," turned out to be an incredibly successful experiment! interestingly, the two winners have been known throughout their careers as being quirky and creative scientists. geim is no stranger to winning prizes, as he also won an Ig Nobel award in 2000 for levitating a frog with magnets. amazing!

cheers fellas, for proving that creativity and fun should be applied to all aspects of life, including science!

do physicists believe in god?

we are a small sample size, but the physicists of sixty symbols weigh in on the question... do you believe in god?



in addition, we also share our favorite "astronomical feature" in the video.

i havent written too much on my personal (lack of) belief in god on this blog, but here is something i wrote in 2006, if youre interested.

answers from sixty symbols: part 2

brady asked for my favorite symbol.... it has always been the same! watch below for more answers from your questions to the scientists of sixty symbols.



the answers: part 1.

the ANSWERS from sixty symbols

you asked questions and they were good. here is the first video of our answers:

sixty symbols: asteroids

there has been quite an excited buzz around the internet about the recent video showing asteroid discovery from 1980 to 2010. what you gain from watching is that there are LOTS of asteroids out there, which is "cool and mildly terrifying" as a friend so succinctly described it.

it just so happens that sixty symbols released a video describing asteroids today which describes, ironically, why individual asteroids are no longer given unique symbols.

Sixty Symbols: you ask the questions!

the 100th video for the sixty symbols project will be filmed soon! the filmmaker, brady, is asking for you all to submit questions that he can ask us - without us knowing the questions beforehand! i like his advice: don't ask something that you could look up in a textbook or on the internet... see if you can be creative and ask questions we've never been asked before!

i admit, i'm moderately terrified by this idea, but certainly excited to see what you come up with! eek!

you can submit questions directly to brady at sixtysymbols [at] hotmail.co.uk or you can ask me a question in the comments if you want!

laser cooling

did you know you could cool a gas with lasers? this sixty symbols video explains the process...

(i didnt know there was such an intricate laser system here at the university of nottingham!)

(also, the last line of this video is great ;)

the proton is 4% smaller than we thought!

but how did we make this new measurement? sixty symbols discusses the implications:

sixty symbols: testing the jabulani

there has been a bit of fuss about the official world cup ball, the jabulani, developed by adidas especially for the world cup. so for sixty symbols, brady decided to let scientists tackle the controversy behind the jabulani in a couple fun videos.

WARNING: these videos show scientists playing football! we actually play five-a-side once a week, but that might not be evident from the highlights shown here ;)



i was pretty excited to play with the jabulani and overall i was impressed by the quality. i lack the ability to purposely spin the ball in all sorts of directions so i cant comment about that aspect of the jabulani's performance, but one thing i noticed is that it bounces a lot higher than the one i'm used to playing with. maybe its a similar thing to tennis - when you use new balls they are really bouncy! brady got annoyed that we kept asking him about the air pressure and whether he filled the ball too much! ha!

the jabulani also makes an incredibly awesome echo sound when you strike it!

in addition to the fabulous football footage shown in the video above, brady put together a bonus video of our highly-competitive penalty shoot-out! i missed my penalty, but got to try out a vuvuzela!! i have no idea how people can blow those things for 90 minutes. previous experience playing brass instruments is a big plus!

mmm... quarks!

here's a new sixty symbols video on quarks, those flavourful little elementary particles that combine to make protons and neutrons and other not so well-known hadrons.

sixty symbols: foam physics

what is the connection between giraffes, wine corks, and the distribution of galaxies in the universe? watch the newest sixty symbols video to find out! i found this one really interesting...