“Head-on Collision of Colored Vortex Rings”. A humble title for an utterly amazing video, via the Fluid Mechanics Group at the National University of Singapore. And there’s more in the title card!

“Note the formation of small rings from the cross-linking of the wavy vortex filaments of the larger rings”.

Indeed. The video brings to memory that long before strings became fashionable  in modern physics, an early model of atoms proposed by William Thomson, better known as Lord Kelvin, suggested they were vortex rings in the ether.

As Michael Fowler wonders, Kelvin was probably inspired in his revolutionary idea by a demonstration akin to this:

That’s a simulation by Paul Nylander, but vortex rings can do that trick, being remarkably stable. Nylander also offers this visualization that helps to see what’s actually happening (click on the image for the video):

Unfortunately, vortexes are not that stable in many forms other than rings, and thus can’t really account for a good model of atoms. More than a good analogy (“atoms are strings!”, “atoms are smoke rings!”, “atoms are little solar systems!”), what we really need in science, and particularly in physics, are good mathematical tools, and fluid dynamics didn’t offer much advance in predicting the behavior of particles.

Kelvin’s inspired idea did lead to much advance in fluid dynamics physics and even mathematics, particularly the knot theory from topology.

Interestingly, occultists at the end of 19th century also liked Kelvin’s idea. Oh, pseudoscience, always trailing after real science all the while claiming it’s beyond this allegedly obsolete establishment. Too bad there’s evidence those occultists also liked to copy data from real science for their alleged mystical visions.

J. Michael McBride has the whole story of the “Direct Observation of Atoms through Clairvoyance”.

But let’s not be too harsh, at least with good Lord Kelvin, the one who doubted the airplane was possible. The idea of vortex atoms was indeed revolutionary, it does find a distant correlation with modern string theories, and it may not have been such a bad idea after all.

Such is science, and it’s possible string theories may come even closer to Kelvin’s original proposal.

Sure thing is, vortex rings are utterly cool.

© forgetomori 2010. | Permalink

Almost 60 acres. 530 x 450 meters in size. Created in an evening of August, 2009, at the province of Zeeland, Netherlands, it’s the biggest “crop circle” ever created. And with a twist.

Everything was recorded in video, as this was definitely a very human creation. To be more exact, a creation of 60 humans captured in its process from concept to realization by the cameras of the reality TV show “Try Before You Die”. Click on the image below to see the short clip where cute presenter Geraldine Kemper becomes one of the team leaders stomping crop around in the middle of the night:

The culprits are the members of XL D-Sign team, which has been creating fantastic formations for more than ten years – many of which are promoted as “mysterious” to this day. This latest one, the biggest one to date, was properly named project Atlas, and aimed not only to break the size record but also depict “a message of both the beauty and vulnerability of man”.

The gigantic formation can be interpreted in several ways, from the metamorphosis of a butterfly, to the Vitruvian Man, to Mothman and perhaps even chakras. All part of a human symbology, with a human message, created by humans to humans, surpassing in size every crop circle ever created.

Of course, even this will probably not convince those willing to believe in this mystery of crop circles. Nothing ever will, as it’s impossible to prove that all and every crop circle is man-made, and believers will often not accept the reasoning by which one crop circle must be proved not man-made, and not the other way around.

Even those that do understand that the burden of proof lies in proving that there is something other than human circlemakers (and fungus, and lodging, and other prosaic explanations) here will cling to one or another crop circle. Until it’s proven man-made… and they jump to the next crop circle that just “cannot” be man-made. Until it’s also proven man-made. That is, in effect it’s the same fallacy of assuming a crop circle to be supernatural unless proven otherwise.

One particular example that’s worth mentioning is the Julia Set formation, allegedly created in less than 45 minutes according to the report of a doctor who flew over the area, and only noticed it in his return trip, 45 minutes later.

Creating 149 circles, several hundred feet in size, is a feat that even seasoned circlemakers would probably have a very hard time doing. I would not say it would be impossible, but as far as I know, no one did it. Yet.

But can we really be sure the huge Julia set formation was made in less 45 minutes? As it turns out, probably not.

“When that doctor flew over, he just didn’t see it the first time. That happens a lot. His report was wrong. He just didn’t see it”, says circlemaker Rod Dickinson. He asserts that he knows the (human) creators of the formation, that “was made the previous night, by three people, in about two and three-quarters hours, starting around 2:45 am (on Sunday morning, July 7). It was there all that day”.

American ufologist Michael Lindemann replies with disbelief: “You mean, it sat there next to that highway all day, and no one saw it? Are you kidding?”

"If you went there, you’d see how the field slopes down and away from the road. The formation was in a kind of bowl, below the level of the road. Going by in a car, you couldn’t see it. You would have to get out and walk toward it and look down into that bowl-shaped area to see it", answers Dickinson.

"But there is a lot of air traffic in that area. Planes must have flown over it many times that day."

"Sure, but lots of them just didn’t see it, and the rest didn’t think to report it, until that doctor reported it in the evening. I know this can happen, because I’ve made quite a few big formations and then waited for a day, even several days, before they’re discovered."

That must be a familiar phenomenon. Those are the Invisible Gorillas.

According to Dickinson, by the way, the same team that created the Julia set formation would also be responsible for the more famous Triple Julia formation.

Those skeptical about Dickinson claims – after all, he doesn’t prove his assertions of knowing who did it, nor is he willing to disclose their names – may simply look carefully at both Julia Set formations. Though the bigger circles followed a more carefully traced work line – which is still visible joining their centers – the smaller, secondary ones were probably stomped “free-hand” and show some gross inconsistencies in their positioning.

But nothing of this will convince those willing to believe in this mystery of crop circles. Nothing ever will. Asked if what he does isn’t just plain fraud, Dickinson offered a thoughtful answer:

"No, it’s not fraud at all. We aren’t the ones who say, ‘Look, these formations must be made by UFOs,’ or whatever. We just make them, as pure art. Then other people, researchers and ‘experts,’ make up all kinds of stories and explanations. It’s interesting to watch this happen, but we aren’t doing it. None of the circle makers ever try to convince anyone that these formations are made by some unusual force. And when we actually tell people that we are making these formations, most people don’t believe us anyway."

The biggest crop circle ever created was recorded by a reality TV show, and will soon be featured by a documentary produced by its creators. Most people will not believe that that has anything to do with the “mystery” of crop circles. [via Francesco Grassi’s Blog]

© forgetomori 2010. | Permalink

“A friend of mine was amazed after watching Avatar. He couldn’t stop talking about the floating mountains. Then I said to him: ‘Man, your planet has huge mountains of water. Water! They float above your head every day and when they turn into rain, they contribute to the cycle of the most important liquid to your existence’. Most people go around without realizing the complexity, wonder and graciousness that a cloud is.” – Ibrahim César, 1001 Gatos de Schrödinger

Indeed, as Cecil Adams writes, “a good sized cumulonimbus cloud, or thunderhead, [has] a mass of roughly four billion kilograms per cloud, or the equivalent of not one but 10,000 747s.”

Just wanted to share that with you all. “Science is the poetry of reality”.

© forgetomori 2010. | Permalink

Just look at the image above: from a strictly fictional point of view, could there be something cooler than Nazi flying saucers fighting at the Second World War? Nazis, they are evil, and now they have flying saucers!

Besides a nice upcoming CGI comedy movie, this is something that could be seen as a background story for a (good) Indiana Jones movie, and in fact, LucasFilm Games sold “Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe” at the beginning of the 1990s – it didn’t include Nazi flying saucers, but it had a Horten flying wing (which was recently recreated, by the way).

My own interest for ufology started when I was young(er) and first read these wild tales of incredible Nazi flying disks. There are even scale models for sale. I actually believed the stories.

Because, you see, stories and rumours about flying saucers from the evil Nazis are promoted as real fact by not so few. You can read all about how Hitler ran away to the South Pole and the Nazis visited Mars on Kevin McClure’s comprehensive research on the subject published on Magonia, or his short summary and update published on 2003 at ForteanTimes.

Now fellow Maurizio Verga has published an amazing article which adds a lot of information to the subject, especially at its origins. The article is in Italian – here’s an automated English translation – but it’s well worth the effort to understand it even if you don’t quite get the language (like me).

One of the most interesting finds by Verga in my opinion is the image at the top of this post. The comment that it would be something very cool from a fictional point of view had a reason: pay attention to the signature.

The illustration comes from Amazing Stories, published in July 1943. That’s four years before the start of the modern obsession with flying saucers, and therefore way before anyone associated them with Nazis, much less Aliens.

As Verga remarks, in the 1950s that exact scene – a flying saucer fighting a squadron of Superfortress Flying Fortresses (thanks Craig!)– would be depicted as a supposedly real event over Schweinfurt in 1944.

[Above, art by Daniele Sabatini, 1998. Compare it with the 1943 Amazing Stories illustration]

It’s not news to the psychosocial theorist that all and every allegedly real element from ufology can be found years before in science fiction. Some examples, however, can be quite impressive, and the Amazing Stories illustration foretelling later Nazi UFOs tales is clearly one of them.

Nazi UFOs are not just a curious sub-area of ufology. At the early years of the field, the idea that flying saucers were very terrestrial secret weapons was one of the most popular explanation for them. Before they were Alien, they were Nazi.

Aliens didn’t even made it to the opinion poll, as the extraterrestrial hypothesis would only be widely popularized in 1950 by Donald Keyhoe.

Now, another interesting bit, Verga also remarks how even Keyhoe mentioned the story he heard that flying saucers were real… British aircraft, captured from the Nazis after the war. They were later transferred to Australia and also Canada, the story went.

Nazi UFOs: an idea so cool that it quickly jumped from Amazing Stories to… amazing stories as told by not quite amazing, and not at all original, mystery sellers.

Be sure to check Verga’s work: WikiUFO, UFO nazisti: leggende dischi volanti tedeschi Nazi UFOs saucers.

© forgetomori 2010. | Permalink

“This Dramatic Spiral Burst known to ‘insiders’ as The Ring of Fire Fault was observed on national radar over Melbourne Australia today – but then what?  Is this the HAARP smoking gun?” – Colin Andrews

Andrews, more known for his involvement with crop circles, tries very hard to work up some curious geometric patterns seen through weather stations in Australia over the last few days. They are indeed quite interesting, which gives him room to speculate about “strange weather effects, possible weather modification experiments or the secret agenda behind the global HAARP project”.

Amazingly, however, Andrews has already received and actually reproduced the quite prosaic explanations for these patterns… but he simply don’t seem to get it.

Read on: HAARP, Crop Circles and Giant Weather Rings? (688 words)

© forgetomori 2010. | Permalink