Well..what DOES a nanosecond look like?

Grace Hopper provides a beautifully simple visualisation of what a nanosecond looks like. So simple, so effective:

Whoops!

"A school which recently converted to an academy after being sponsored by one of the country's largest independent school chains has failed its inspection, in an embarrassment for the Government.

"The verdict will not be welcomed by David Cameron, who is trying to persuade all the country's leading independent schools to sponsor academies because of their supposed transformative powers.

"The Sir Robert Woodard Academy in Lancing, West Sussex, was described as "inadequate" in its report by Ofsted, the education standards watchdog."

As they say on their own website (http://bit.ly/yOKrXe): "Come on – you can do better than this!" 

Full article here: http://ind.pn/ztVmtl

Training isn’t cool! Sometimes, you just have to do it.

"Do we bend over backwards to make exercise cool so that children will want to do it? No, of course we don’t. We make PE compulsory in school because we know that it is good for children. We don’t lure them to do star-jumps by persuading them they will be relevant later in life. I remember running a lot of laps when I was in school. I don’t recall using these laps at any point to get me a job. That doesn’t mean that they weren’t good for me."

"It should be the same with maths because we know, even if they don’t yet, that no one is going to thrive in this technologically advanced society without knowing the basic language – maths – that underpins so much of what we do."

Read the full article here: http://tgr.ph/zC6uBN

Happy Valentine

Just paste this into Google search box...

Happy Valentine's Day

sqrt(cos(x))cos(300x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2), -sqrt(6-x^2)

How did Dutch artist Leon Keer create a 3D illusion on a street in chalk? The same way they created perspective in Renaissance Florence

"Computers enable artists to calculate such effects with new precision – just as they enable 3D film-makers to achieve similar illusions. But all these modern wonders go back to the Renaissance when the closest thing to a computer was a set-square. The science improves. The locations change from churches and palaces to cinema screens and street surfaces. Our capacity for wonder lives on." (BBC) - http://bit.ly/zwfkuz

These are becoming more popular these days - it seems - but this video gives a little insight into the creation of an anamorphic street image.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm3bUEePRMU&feature=player_embedded

Spiralling into a trajectory?

"An Australian biology professor is causing a rumble in the academic jungle by suggesting that his country should import elephants and other foreign species into its wild interior.

"Take so many big species out of an ecosystem, and there are bound to be changes all the way down to its bottom.

"'We have a very unbalanced ecology and it's all just spiralling into a trajectory', lamented Prof Bowman."

I would love someone to provide a diagram or equation that would represent this 'spiralling into a trajectory'.

Read more at the BBC: http://bbc.in/wLStPv

Finding the truth and beauty in data

Typically short and superficial but this video clip shows some of the latest uses of technology for visualising data.

Link to BBC Technology page with video

Trains and planes mapped in 'real' time...nice.

Source - BBC News - © 2011 BBC