0 comment Sunday, May 11, 2014 | admin
Yesterday I went to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich to listen to a lecture by Dr Omar Almaini from the University Of Nottingham.
The talk covered the nature of supermassive black holes, why we think that they exist and how to discover them which was fascinating.
However, as an artist, I was moved by the visual data that Dr Omar Almaini provided along with his talk.
This video shows a cluster of stars hidden behind the black dust of the milky way. The camera used to capture this information was specifically designed for this purpose, as scientists were fascinated to discover if there was a black hole lurking in our galaxy.
For scientists to determine if a black hole did exist in our galaxy, the scientists would need to track the movement of stars. If the stars were found to be moving around, then this would become evidence of a black hole in our galaxy.
Dr Omar Almaini described this clip as "pure unadulterated data straight from the telescope". This video shows that stars are in fact orbiting a central point of gravity within the space of a few decades, so most scientists now believe that a dormant black hole does exist in the Milky Way.
Using this definition of "dormant", there are no collisions of planets / there is no fuel for the black hole to emit any kind of radiation. It is also rather unlikely that we will get sucked in to the black hole any time soon!
Using this data, scientists have been able to make models of the stars orbiting the black hole as a visual aid. (Towards the end of this clip).
I am always impressed by any super-intelligent professor who can simplify complex ideas for consumption of the general public, so I found the talk by Dr Omar Almaini very educational.
I will leave you with an excerpt from "Physics Of The Impossible" by Michio Kaku, on the scientist Albert Einstein.
"What was the secret of his genius? Perhaps one clue to his genius was his ability to think in terms of physical pictures (e.g. moving trains, accelerating clocks, stretched fabrics) rather than pure mathematics.
Einstein once said that unless a theory can be explained to a small child, the theory was probably useless;
that is, the essence of a theory has to be captured by the physical picture; the mathematics would come later".
The talk covered the nature of supermassive black holes, why we think that they exist and how to discover them which was fascinating.
However, as an artist, I was moved by the visual data that Dr Omar Almaini provided along with his talk.
This video shows a cluster of stars hidden behind the black dust of the milky way. The camera used to capture this information was specifically designed for this purpose, as scientists were fascinated to discover if there was a black hole lurking in our galaxy.
For scientists to determine if a black hole did exist in our galaxy, the scientists would need to track the movement of stars. If the stars were found to be moving around, then this would become evidence of a black hole in our galaxy.
Dr Omar Almaini described this clip as "pure unadulterated data straight from the telescope". This video shows that stars are in fact orbiting a central point of gravity within the space of a few decades, so most scientists now believe that a dormant black hole does exist in the Milky Way.
Using this definition of "dormant", there are no collisions of planets / there is no fuel for the black hole to emit any kind of radiation. It is also rather unlikely that we will get sucked in to the black hole any time soon!
Using this data, scientists have been able to make models of the stars orbiting the black hole as a visual aid. (Towards the end of this clip).
I am always impressed by any super-intelligent professor who can simplify complex ideas for consumption of the general public, so I found the talk by Dr Omar Almaini very educational.
I will leave you with an excerpt from "Physics Of The Impossible" by Michio Kaku, on the scientist Albert Einstein.
"What was the secret of his genius? Perhaps one clue to his genius was his ability to think in terms of physical pictures (e.g. moving trains, accelerating clocks, stretched fabrics) rather than pure mathematics.
Einstein once said that unless a theory can be explained to a small child, the theory was probably useless;
that is, the essence of a theory has to be captured by the physical picture; the mathematics would come later".
Labels: Albert Einstein, Dr Omar Almaini, Michio Kaku, National Maritime Museum, Physics Of The Impossible, Stellar Motions In The Galactic Centre, Supermassive Black Hole, The Milky Way, Video, Visualization, Youtube
0 comment Friday, March 28, 2014 | admin
Omid Kashan's "Timeline Of The Universe" has been featured on Information Is Beautiful which is a website run by David McCandless. David McCandless is a data journalist and information designer who is passionate about visualizing information.
It is easy to see why Omid Kashan's design appeals to David McCandless, as creating a "timeline for the universe" is an ambitious task, yet executed beautifully. The finished design is sleek, the circular design helps to simplify the information, whilst the colour palette evokes a night sky.
The concept of visualizing data is an interesting one, data in its raw format can be terribly boring. For example, Omid Kashan used a Wikipedia page to construct his timeline. However, the Information Is Beautiful website shows that data doesn't have to look dull. The algorithms constructed by data can be processed in a creative way, making new patterns and designs that would be hard to devise from imagination alone.
This type of data presentation is already being used successfully as a type of interactive exhibit at The Wellcome Collection. In July 2011, I visited The Wellcome Collection and was able to see my biometric identity in the shape of a star!
Labels: Algorithms, Data, David Mccandless, Graphic Design, Information Is Beautiful, Omid Kashan, Patterns, The Wellcome Collection, Timeline, Universe, Visualization