Connecting Godot Machines and Ant Ballets

I'm used to coming across new words, as i have a horrid vocabulary. But when Google's 'define:' function didn't help, I got a bit worried. So I went straight to the source; lead member and founder of the Physical Virus project, Ollie Palmer.

Perhaps you've already recognised, as I nearly did, that 'Godot' originates from the play Waiting for Godot, which portrays the scenario in which two characters wait, in essentially the one place, for a mysterious person named Godot that never arrives. Thus a Godot machine is a mechanical device that keeps a subject of interest in once place at all times. In Ollie's and Physical Virus's case, the subject is an ant.

Godot Machine 1.0-1.5 from Ollie Palmer on Vimeo

IBM Demonstrate New Nano Patterning Tool

Nanotechnology is perhaps THE cutting edge technology of the 21st century. However, production of nano particles of all types remain fairly expensive compared to more conventional ways of using the same materials.

However thanks to IBM researchers, the status quo could be about to change for the technique of nano patterning.

IBM scientists have developed a new technique that uses a nano scale tip, that when forced to a surface and heated sufficiently is able to carve away substrate material from the surface to create 2D and 3D patterns and structures as small as 15 nanometres at greatly reduced cost and complexity.

Click on the images bellow for a thorough explanation and access to higher resolution pictures.

Image courtesy of Advanced Materials

Caleb Charland

A quick blog about something I found today.

What happens when you have someone who is curious about how things work and they also happen to be a kick arse photographer? You get these...

Caleb Charland | Light Sphere with My Right Arm and Cigarette Lighter

Art of Science Gallary 2010

On the second day of SaCrIt i blogged some neat photos...

The following photos are held a Princeton University webserver. They appear to have run some sort of competition for the best science related photos and have done so for 2010, 2009, 2006 & 2005. Don't ask me what happened to the other years.

Here are the three winners. Click on the images to read about how they were created. Much of the details bellow are in deed paraphrased as i understand very little of it.

This Xenon Plasma Accelerator uses electronic and magnetic fields to accelerate xenon propellant to produce thrust. Xenon is a colourless gas but we can see a blue haze here due to the result of the xenon being excited by electric discharge - like the blue zap of static electric shock we're all too familiar with, although this is a form of electrostatic discharge, but you get the idea. Plasma Accelerators are a leading technology for future space flight... and it looks darn pretty too.

Credits:Jerry Ross (fac) - PPPL