SheNANCYgans

“senses”

12 Piano notes made visible for the first time  Shannon Novak, a New Zealand-born fine artist, commissioned us to image 12 piano notes as inspiration for a series of 12 musical canvases. We decided to image the notes in video mode because when we observed the ‘A1’ note we discovered, surprisingly, that the energy envelope changes over time as the string’s harmonics mix in the piano’s wooden bridge. Instead of the envelope being fairly stable, as we had imagined, the harmonics actually cause the CymaGlyphs to be wonderfully dynamic. Our ears can easily detect the changes in the harmonics and the CymaScope now reveals them—probably a first in acoustic physics.

Lightning Eclipse  by CosmosUp on Flickr.

these are so much fun to make

On this day in 1976, the Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong died just after midnight at the age of 82. Born in 1893 into a Chinese farming family, the young Mao quickly developed an interest in Marxist and Communist ideology. After World War Two, a civil war broke out in China between the ruling nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek and the communists he had tried to purge. Despite having the support of many Western nations like the United States, Chiang Kai-shek was defeated and Mao, who had led the communists, was victorious. On October 1st 1949 Mao proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Mao then ruled the country as Chairman of the Communist Party, and under his rule any opposition to the communist regime was ruthlessly suppressed. Millions died under his rule, some from his disastrous policies like the ‘Great Leap Forward’ of 1958 which tried to rapidly transform China from an agrarian to industrial economy and triggered a deadly famine. Millions more died under his ruthless persecution, especially after the ‘Cultural Revolution’ of 1966 which aimed to purge counter-revolutionary forces in Chinese society. Overall Mao’s rule is believed to have caused the deaths of 40 to 70 million people. In his last years Mao worked to ease tensions with Western powers and met with US President Nixon in China in 1972. Mao Zedong died in 1976 following a period of deteriorating health; his body lay in state at the Great Hall of the People for ten days and his embalmed body remains on display in his mausoleum in Beijing.

Always reblog big kitties with their leetle kitties.

|Unity|