More High-Voltage science action. These Van de Graaff Generators were built by Robert J. Van de Graaff himself for MIT in the early 1930’s. Unlike the Tesla Coil, the Van de Graaff generator is an electrostatic machine which uses a moving belt to accumulate electrostatic voltages on a hollow metal sphere. The machines above were capable of producing 5,000,000 volts and were designed to accelerate subatomic particles to very high velocities for the bombardment and study of atomic nuclei. These goliath machines now reside in the Museum of Science in Boston.
I just watched a very interesting architecture documentary (Great Expectations, SBS). Among the diverse array of incredible buildings was this beautifully simple counterweight by architect Antti Lovag.
While walking on the wild high voltage side of science I came across this: a German Haunebu 2, on a test flight. Wow. Unbelievable. If it wasn’t for that authentic looking signature…
I just fell down the rabbit hole that is Nikola Tesla; inventor of radio, AC current distribution, remote controlled vehicles, and the DEATH RAY (actually Tesla called it the “Peace Ray” but that didn’t catch on). There’s a bit of controversy about whether it actually existed, most sane people think not, most nut bags with an internet connection and a basic grasp of HTML think oh-yeah, and a whole lot more (the above image comes from the Virgin Mary’s End-Time Prophecies page – they claim Soviet use of the weapon in Afghanistan). For a more lucid account of the technology you could read this wiki article (from the metafictional narrative Against the Day). Here they recount a story linking Tesla’s Death Ray to a 1908 explosion in Siberia that destroyed five hundred thousand square acres of land – alternatively, this destruction could be attributed to a meteor impact.
But it all gets slightly more believable when you see pictures of Tesla’s tower at Wardenclyffee Laboratory (below – more images here), or watch the informative video from Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.
The effects you get from even a small Tesla Coil are impressive (photo from David Rieben).
I think I want one. And not for any ‘death ray’ purposes, although there is this one guy who keeps dumping his rubbish in my front yard…
If you’ve seen the Radiohead video for House of Cards you probably know it was ‘filmed’ using a collection of 3D laser scanners. What you may not know is that Radiohead have released the scan data and Processing code used to produce the video. What would anyone want with that? Well you could use it to laboriously recreate the clip in lego. Click through to the YouTube page to watch the high quality version.
