1/13/02
  
1/18/02
1/19/02
1/22/02
(6/6/02)
4/19/02
6/28/02
11/14/03
1/20/04 
      

my home from USGS satellite hovering above earth
1.8.02

In the utter silence

Of a temple,

A cicada's voice alone

Penetrates the rocks.

--Basho, 1689


the world's tallest tree, in Montgomery Woods west of Ukiah

make your own periscope

FLYING ROBOTIC INSECT prototype
 

Lilienthal

cosmological time slowing

NASA has landed the spirit rover and its bumbling around on the surface of mars collecting data

      

my home in bits of my hair
99
  

National Weather Service Forecast Office midday balloon launch--September 7, 1996

hut for releasing weather balloons
Write a short story about being a weather balloon

man flies into the air from weather balloons while sitting in lawn chair
A balloon can be tracked with a theodolite (or radar) with measurements of azimuth and elevation translated to direction and speed.

kaymont balloons, huntington, ny

Releasing a weather balloon during World War II

Robert Fulton, periscope, inventor, 1806



aerodynamic mechanisms of the fruit fly
  

Givaudan

16th c. viking lens?
     

in the milky way in infrared (COBE)
ca.95
 

particle captured in aerogel - a silicon-based solid with a porous, sponge-like structure in which 99 percent of the volume is empty space

Mt Fuji through a periscope from USS Trigger

Chanute

the Nimrod lens
assyrian telescope made out of rock chrystal?

proof that Peary discovered the north pole


This mosaic image taken by the navigation camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit represents an overhead view of the rover on the surface of Mars.
Image credit: NASA/JPL

     
   

an eclipse photographed from a balloon


a video still of a balloon shredding
The first balloon flight across the English Channel occured on January 7, 1785, when Boston physician, Dr. John Jeffries, and French aeronaut, Jean-Pierre Blanchard, left Dover, England, and landed two hours later in Calais, France.

 

Fly animation based on:
C. P. Ellington,
The Aerodynamics of Hovering Insect Flight
(1984).

Heavenly bodies are so far away that they may be considered to be infinitely distant. So, a moth which keeps a constant angle to the rays from the Sun or Moon will not deviate from a straight line, as an infintely distant object does not move with respect to the moth. However, a candle is only a finite distance away, so that any motion by the moth results in a displacement relative to the candle. This means that, for any arbitrary starting angle (80 degrees in the diagram), the angle between the straight flight path and rays of light from the candle changes as the moth moves along the straight path. However, the moth wants to keep this angle constant, so it adjusts its flight path accordingly. The path which the moths traces is a spiral. If the angle is acute to start with (as in the diagram), then the moth follows the spiral inward to its demise. If the angle is obtuse, the moth is lucky and traces the spiral outwards, away from the flame (but it still gets lost). If the angle is right, then the moth flies around and around in a circle.
As it happens, the path taken by the moth is a logarithmic spiral which has the unique property among geometric figures of having no scale. This means that if a logarithmic spiral is traced indefinitely outwards and inwards, it looks exactly the same at all magnifications. However, as the magnification under which it is viewed changes, the spiral appears to rotate.

Ader

Whitehead

Philips

first sketch of a telescope 1609


hole-punch clouds like this are still the topic of meteorological speculation. A leading hypothesis holds that the hole-punch cloud is caused by falling ice-crystals.


This is the first color image of Mars taken by the panoramic camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. It is the highest resolution image ever taken on the surface of another planet.
     
   

bird migration patterns

radar insect migration

 
In addition to their highly-evolved compound eyes, dragonflies have a third eye called the ocelli, which are clustered in a small triangular below and between the eyes. Ocelli are not used to "see," but simply to distinguish light from dark. They allow dragonflies to detect even the slightest movement and assist them in maintaining their flight orientation and stability.

 

 

          
   
 

Metasequoia glyptostroboides
Dawn Redwood

  

toy rover at perkins institute