On the off chance that there isn't enough pie at your holiday festivities, here's some for your brain instead of your stomach. As the video explains, the song was created from the irrational number π by assigning each number 0-9 a note on the A harmonic minor scale. The right hand then plays the never ending digits of π while the left plays the harmony. In a sense, this is an ideal pi(e): you can never fill up on it and it can never make you sick!
More holiday science:
- Have you decorated your home with the requisite holiday poisons?
- Dickens had a fascination with chemistry. If only there had been a ghost of science past.
- If you were really "Home Alone" and faced off with burglars as Macauley Culkin, here's how they would have fared, medically speaking.
- If you don't already know xkcd, you should check it out. Even cooler is the xkcd what if blog that scientifically and mathematically prods some pretty incredible thought experiments. For example, what if three wise men really did walk towards a star at fixed speed? Here's where they might end up.
- And speaking of the magi, the gift of gold can now be located by using insects in Australia.
- Some thoughts on the science and evolution of our perception of color, especially red and green (wink, wink).
- These molecules are talking to you and wishing you happy holidays!
- Token apocalypse geek:
- If you really need to know why we are still here today and not blown to smithereens by some apocalyptic catastrophe, read this.
- On the other hand, if you are craving some apocalyptic visions, here's the year in volcanoes.
- Oh, and start preparing for the next possible apocalypse in 2018.
- And lastly geek for the sake of geek:
- Check out this selection of 20 amazing infographics of 2012.
Happy Geekmas! @Summer_Ash
Leave a Comment:
Thanks, Summer, for posting this! A geek paradise!
My hypothesis is that near term doomers use apocalypse as a marital aid.
Summer -- I have to admit I clicked on the link about "requisite holiday poisons" out of curiosity about what might endanger my cats. Figured at my advanced age, 'twas nothin' left could do me much damage.
Turns out, there's not much left in my house to damage them, either.
Have a good time taking care of you and yours -- and thanks!
I really enjoyed the article on the Mayan calendar. I celebrated one of my best birthdays down at Chichen Itza, surrounded by thatched huts, ruins, and wild turkeys walking around. Loved studying the Mayan ruins in college. Fascinating stuff.
I bought Christmas gifts just in case they were wrong. LOL Actually, they never meant this date as doomsday.
India...
T-shirts for the Geek in all of us...
I just bought four of them for myself for XMas... "Wanted : Dead And Alive - Schrodinger's Cat", "I have only just begun to procrastinate", "May the Mass Times Acceleration be with you", and the most timely of all, "I Survived the Mayan Apocalypse"....
Well, I think we were successful, at diverting whatever it was, we must have cut the right wires and dismantled the bomb. Thats' what it feels like anyway. Probably the Mayan calendar maker just got tired or retired from his post. Only God knows the date of the end of the World, if there is one. There's still a lot of unfinished business to take care of.
As far as colors go, Sunday is white, Monday is light blue, Tuesday is pink, Wednesday is yellow, Thursday is green, Friday is red, and Saturday is sky blue. My favorite crayon color is burnt sienna, I don't know why.
Actually, there are a lot of poisons associated with Christmas decorations. Resin in pine trees is poisonous, the leaves of a pointsettia are poisonous (don't let your cat near them) and the berries from the mistletoe are poisonous. I don't know of any others, but that's enough for a jolly Christmas around here!
Thanks. That was fun, and now some new sites to check out. We're still here - no asteroids, no rapture, and I guess I'll have to start getting ready for Christmas dinner.
Funny though, even on the Maya site, there was someone making unrelated, snide, and exceptionally stupid remarks. What is up with this? One poster referred to it as going to someone's house and pissing on their carpet. They seem to think they are clever, but ....
that was pretty awesome.
No credits on the pi video -- who made it? Is it Vi Hart by any chance?
That was too cool!