So far, I've traveled into and out of the cosmos, and into and out of cells... I've seen the glow of the universe. I've been inspired and stunned, and it's only 11:00 am... !!
Jacob Abrahamse, a child soprano, opened the conference with his angelic voice, and was followed by Marcel Danesi who spoke about symbols and meanings. Marcel Danesi is a pop culture semiotician.
This is the 10th anniversary of IdeaCity, and the symbol "X" is everywhere, X being the roman numeral for ten:
"X is crossed swords, combat - who will be the victor? we do not know, so the mystics adopted X as the sign of destiny, and algebraists chose it to represent the unknown..." - Victor Hugo
"In cartoons, X is a symbol of death. Draw X's over the eyes and that little critter is toast".
Would you like to see something totally neat? - http://www.youtube.com/wat
Next, I learned about the rings of Saturn in a funny and astounding speech by Mark Showalter, a planetary systems expert who had worked on the Cassini mission. The back-lit image (forward-scattered image) of Saturn was astounding. Usually we see an image of Saturn face on, in full sunlight, but the Cassini image it is back-lit, an eclipse, and all of the dusty filaments of rings are visible. An outer ring was discovered, and in it, a little satellite... And on this little satellite, geysers, liquid water, and green stripes indictiave of life...
COOL!
Barth Netterfield was next. We learned about balloon borne telescopes... The balloons can float for weeks, but they need to be warm so the gas inside won't condense and cause the balloon to fall. The solution when the sun rises and sets? Fly them at the north or south pole! They have constant sunlight there, depending on the season... The particular telescope that was launched could "see" into the dark matter in galaxies where new stars are born...
"Space is really empty, even when it is full".
David Ben was the last speaker before the break. He is a magician and showed us how professional cheaters cheat at poker using sophisticated shuffling techniques... I made notes: Never play poker with David Ben.
http://www.ideacityonline.
More pictures to come, I had to get used to playing with my camera.
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