Cool stuff found on the Interwebs

[Roy Hunter]

This is intended as a counterpoint to funny stuff found on the interwebs: stuff that is not funny, but is undeniably cool. So here we go...

The last ever launch of Space Shuttle Discovery as viewed from a commercial airliner.

Not funny. But cool.

[Tigger_the_Wing]

Thank you for posting that, Roy! I wonder what it must have felt like to be a passenger on that aeroplane and watch the shuttle go past so fast that it was as if they were standing still. Even on video it is impressive.

I had just watched this programme on telly a couple of days ago, which gives an idea of what the aeroplane might have looked like to the people on the shuttle.

[black bart]

Thanks to Ravi Oli I've gone off on a Steely Dan YouTube tangent for the last half hour or so...this is my favourite clip:

Kid Charlemagne live

[PKMKII]

Crazy-ass downhill urban BMX race/suicide attempt.

[gronank]

I think he/she were rather well aware of the track beforehand

[daftbeaker]

I'm pretty sure the horn noise is actually the brake blocks Watching that actually scared me a bit.

Oh, I got sent this in my email. The Universe to scale

[PKMKII]

Oh, I got sent this in my email. The Universe to scale

It's cool, but they should have set it to this music.

[gronank]

Th visible universe isn't 14bnly in radius, it is closer to 46bn. It is true that the universe is about 14bn years old and light obviosly travels at the speed of light. The extra size comes from the fact that space itself expands. I don't think there are any exceedingly intuive analogies for this though. Imagine walking at a constant speed on a rubber band that is stretching, The further you get towards your destination, the more of the way increase from the stretching is behind you where you already walked.

[Tigger_the_Wing]

I understood that the visible universe is 14,000,000,000* light years in radius but the actual size of the universe is much, much bigger; the rest is invisible because the age of the universe is 14,000,000,000* years and the speed of light is such that there hasn't been time for the light from anything further away to reach us.

(*approximate values)

Edit: It is my understanding that, if the further universe is expanding away from us at a relative speed greater than that of light, we'll never be able to see it.

[gronank]

The oldest parts of the universe we can see is about 14bn years old and are at a distance of about 46bn light years away. That is, if we froze the expansion of the universe and pointed a laser at those parts, we would se a reflection in 92bn years (all the way over there and all the way back). And as I stated, this is not at all intuitive since we're just not used to space behaving that way.

[daftbeaker]

Th visible universe isn't 14bnly in radius, it is closer to 46bn. It is true that the universe is about 14bn years old and light obviosly travels at the speed of light. The extra size comes from the fact that space itself expands. I don't think there are any exceedingly intuive analogies for this though. Imagine walking at a constant speed on a rubber band that is stretching, The further you get towards your destination, the more of the way increase from the stretching is behind you where you already walked.

The metaphor I like is a balloon. If you draw dots on at a certain distance and then blow it up, the dots are farther apart but haven't actually moved anywhere

[gronank]

Th visible universe isn't 14bnly in radius, it is closer to 46bn. It is true that the universe is about 14bn years old and light obviosly travels at the speed of light. The extra size comes from the fact that space itself expands. I don't think there are any exceedingly intuive analogies for this though. Imagine walking at a constant speed on a rubber band that is stretching, The further you get towards your destination, the more of the way increase from the stretching is behind you where you already walked.

The metaphor I like is a balloon. If you draw dots on at a certain distance and then blow it up, the dots are farther apart but haven't actually moved anywhere

Any future explanation of the phenomenon will consist of an ant walking on an inflating balloon.

[daftbeaker]

Any future explanation of the phenomenon will consist of an ant walking on an inflating balloon.

A masterful metaphor

[Qwertyuiopasd]

Ant walking on an inflating mobius strip?

[daftbeaker]

Volcano lake.

It looks small until you see picture 20 and suddenly it all jumps into scale