3 ms·
The Beautiful Experiment
- molbioguy 5y agoThe double-slit experiment should be in this category. Unfortunately, it is hard to peg one instance as the definitive experiment, unlike Meselson and Stahl or Michelson-Morley.
- molbioguy 5y agoIs computer science an experimental science? Are there any classic "experiments" (beautiful or not) in the field?
- kordlessagain 5y agoSpeaking of pendulums: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach%27s_principle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach%27s_principle > it... turns out that inertia originates in a kind of interaction between bodies, quite in the sense of your considerations on Newton's pail experiment... If one rotates [a heavy shell of matter] relative to the fixed stars about an axis going through its center, a Coriolis force arises in the interior of the shell; that is, the plane of a Foucault pendulum is dragged around (with a practically unmeasurably small angular velocity). - Einstein
- AlbertCory 5y agoThe paragraph containing this: Scientific equipment can indeed be beautiful, and often is. Take, for instance, chemical retorts, prisms, microscopes and complicated structures built in laboratories. Museums house beautifully crafted scientific instruments and equipment from the past because we can appreciate their aesthetic features. reminds me of my visit to Lick Observatory's refracting telescope. It's a 14-ton beast in a giant room that looks like almost every science fiction movie ever made [1]. But what stuck with me as much as that was the table with scientific equipment in the middle of the room. This was not some sissy plastic digital boxes! Oh no, this was really he-man stuff, with heavy metal frames, great big knobs, and analog dials. It was awesome. [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darkskyphotography/the-great-lick-refractor https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darkskyphotography/the-...