7 ms·

I wish the producers were less enamoured of their slow-mo and showed us the whole thing in real-time. The "weird" thing is seeing feathers plummet to the groun

I wish the producers were less enamoured of their slow-mo and showed us the whole thing in real-time. The "weird" thing is seeing feathers plummet to the ground and I wish we got to see more of that.

shangxiao 12y ago
I actually like the slow-mo as it reaffirms the fact that there is no air in that chamber. When the feathers first drop you see a slight sway in the feathers, but only due to the acceleration. It's actually quite a sight to see feathers accelerate so quickly and stay so still.
- ghshephard 12y ago
  According to this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle, posted lower, the feathers aren't under acceleration. Which is pretty cool once you think about it.
- paddyoloughlin 12y ago
  I'm not against them using slow-mo at all. But they showed the drop several times, and I would have preferred them to show it at real speed at least once.
zelos 12y ago
This is a Brian Cox show we're talking about, not a science show. I'm surprised there weren't more slow mo shots of Cox doing his "boyish wonder" face.
- aragot 12y ago
  I too though this "boyish wonder" face was phony. And yet the "boyish wonder" face will change the fate of the whole video when I show it to my 7yo. The rest is concrete and iron, not really appealing to kids, despite the potential awesomeness of the huge vacuum chamber.
  - zelos 12y ago
    Indeed, but the show is on primetime BBC2, not CBBC or CBeebies. Ah, I guess anything that brings more viewers to science content is good. I just miss the old days of Horizon.
    - muglug 12y ago
      Me too. I grew up on Horizon, Tomorrow's World and QED.
  - antimagic 12y ago
    What? No! I don't know about you, but I would have a silly grin on my face too if I actually got to see this experiment live - I mean it's such a classic result - we've all been told that this is what would happen, but very few of us actually get to see it. It's like the experience of seeing the moons of Jupiter the first time that you look at it through a telescope - yes, you know the moons are there, you've even seen photos of them in high-def colour, but there is something special about seeing it first hand. So no, I don't think that that's a fake grin. But then, as with most female geeks, I have a huge Brian Cox crush, so I may be biased ;)
    - shangxiao 12y ago
      I would've also had a silly grin on my face due to the epiphany I would've experienced.
    - anigbrowl 12y ago
      I find this perplexing. Obviously few of us would get to see a feather drop due to the lack of a huge vacuum chamber, but you can derive almost as much experimental entertainment by dropping, say, a ping-pong ball and a similarly sized marble or ball bearing. Really, I think the slow-motion camera has much more educational value than the vacuum chamber (cool as that is). When I was in school and we'd debate such things, I liked to do experiments but dropping things of different weight off the roof only takes you so far, as people might object that they hit the ground a fraction of a second apart but too little of an interval to notice given the relatively low height etc. If I was doing it now I'd just use my camera to tighten things up, and although it's slo-mo capabilities are limited several current consumer models deliver that functionality at affordable prices.
- scottlocklin 12y ago
  Glad to know I'm not the only one who finds Cox incredibly annoying. FWIIW, the exploratorium in SF and the Boston Science Museum both have experiments of this nature. It is a cool vacuum chamber though. Reading some of the NASA early docs on building such things can be quite fun.
  - smackfu 12y ago
    I think the backlash against Cox is almost cliché at this point.
    - anigbrowl 12y ago
      I'd never heard of him before this morning, but this style of overly-polished TV production is common in the US as well. One of the things that irritates me about it is that they expend significant budgets on presenting and dramatizing quite basic things in science (which is a good thing) but all this experiential/eye-candy stuff comes at the expense of covering less material.
      - res0nat0r 12y ago
        This is appealing to the userbase who would never watch a dry boring scientific show in the first place, not hardcore science geeks.
      - lobster_johnson 12y ago
        If you're looking for science documentaries with a little more depth, look at the series done by Jim Al-Khalili (eg., "Atom", "Absolute Zero" or "Chemistry: A Volatile History") and Michael Moseley ("The Story of Science"). In "The Story of Science", Moseley covers much the same ground as James Burke's famous "Connections" (and also his highly-esteemed "The Day thee Universe Changed") -- albeit in a more literal and less literary angle -- or indeed Sagan's eminent "Cosmos". Al-Khalili is a physicist, though, and I think his documentaries are more to the point than Cox's, even if they're also full of excellent photography. Definitely less bubbly.
- eevilspock 12y ago
  Do you not have kids or rarely interact/play with kids? Kids are no, even though I know the relevant laws of physics and was intellectually not surprised, I was still in awe and it still violates my instinctive expectations. A visual equivalent to stepping onto a broken escalator.
- nly 12y ago
  His 'boyish wonder', although personally I think it's genuine, does get annoying to those of us who have their own wonder to contend with. Though, perhaps, those completely devoid of it themselves appreciate the cues. I really don't mind Cox... what I despise is the trend of putting comedians in to science and politics shows in an attempt to relieve the dowdiness (Sorry Dara). Then again, I'm one of those people who used to sneak downstairs in the early hours to watch the dusty math and science stuff the BBC used to broadcast for teachers to record on VHS.
  - ambler0 12y ago
    Alan Alda has done a great job of bringing charisma and humor to science shows without dumbing anything down. The key is to find a comedian/actor/whatever who has a genuine interest in the material.
  - gadders 12y ago
    I agree. Have you ever tried listening to The Infinite Monkey Cage on BBC Radio 4? [1] It's motto seems to be "Look at us! We're scientists but we're so wacky!!!111" http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr0w http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr0w
    - JonnieCache 12y ago
      Robin Ince certainly has a lot to answer for. Ben Goldacre is the master of this style of science communication. Friendly and fun and enthusiastic, but in a way that appeals to both laymen and his peers. I suppose epidemiology is somewhat more human than astrophysics, so its easier.
      - gadders 12y ago
        Frontiers [1] also on Radio 4 is good. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qy5p http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qy5p
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- ytturbed 12y ago
  The value of his 'boyish wonder face' is that he's emotionally open, relatively speaking, and therefore we perceive that he's not consciously deceiving us in ways that he thinks important. It shouldn't matter, of course, since explanations either stand or they don't. But it seems that so much public discourse is infected with paranoia and conspiracy theory, including around space history.
kyberias 12y ago
Exactly. I was frantically searching the video for this. Did they show it?
danielweber 12y ago
With the HTML5 player you can double the speed; it's entirely in browser, so you can probably capture the Javascript event and make it go at 5x or 10x or whatever is needed to play at full speed. (It'll be up to you to then dub in Yakety Sax.)
apcherry 12y ago
For me the "weird"/unusual/interesting thing is seeing the feathers bounce after hitting the ground.
thaumaturgy 12y ago
Somebody on Reddit took that scene, sped it up to something close to normal time, and made a gif: http://gfycat.com/GentleMeaslyFattaileddunnart http://gfycat.com/GentleMeaslyFattaileddunnart
- christiangenco 12y ago
  The acceleration looks wrong. It looks like the show altered the footage to have constant speed, and Reddit just sped it up.
mhartl 12y ago
Not wanting to wait through the prologue, I skipped ahead in the video, where I searched in vain for the real-time drop. It's bizarre that they apparently didn't show it even once, especially since it can't have taken more than a few seconds (the chamber's height is 37.2 meters [1], so t_max = √(2h/g) = √(2×37.2/9.8) = 2.75 s). [1]: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2819205/Testing-gravity-world-s-BIGGEST-vacuum-chamber-Watch-Brian-Cox-prove-bowling-ball-feathers-fall-together.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2819205/Testi...

I wish the producers were less enamoured of their slow-mo and showed us the whole thing in real-time. The "weird" thing is seeing feathers plummet to the ground and I wish we got to see more of that.

shangxiao 12y ago

I actually like the slow-mo as it reaffirms the fact that there is no air in that chamber. When the feathers first drop you see a slight sway in the feathers, but only due to the acceleration. It's actually quite a sight to see feathers accelerate so quickly and stay so still.

ghshephard 12y ago
According to this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle, posted lower, the feathers aren't under acceleration. Which is pretty cool once you think about it.
paddyoloughlin 12y ago
I'm not against them using slow-mo at all. But they showed the drop several times, and I would have preferred them to show it at real speed at least once.

zelos 12y ago

This is a Brian Cox show we're talking about, not a science show. I'm surprised there weren't more slow mo shots of Cox doing his "boyish wonder" face.

aragot 12y ago
I too though this "boyish wonder" face was phony. And yet the "boyish wonder" face will change the fate of the whole video when I show it to my 7yo. The rest is concrete and iron, not really appealing to kids, despite the potential awesomeness of the huge vacuum chamber.
- zelos 12y ago
  Indeed, but the show is on primetime BBC2, not CBBC or CBeebies. Ah, I guess anything that brings more viewers to science content is good. I just miss the old days of Horizon.
  - muglug 12y ago
    Me too. I grew up on Horizon, Tomorrow's World and QED.
- antimagic 12y ago
  What? No! I don't know about you, but I would have a silly grin on my face too if I actually got to see this experiment live - I mean it's such a classic result - we've all been told that this is what would happen, but very few of us actually get to see it. It's like the experience of seeing the moons of Jupiter the first time that you look at it through a telescope - yes, you know the moons are there, you've even seen photos of them in high-def colour, but there is something special about seeing it first hand. So no, I don't think that that's a fake grin. But then, as with most female geeks, I have a huge Brian Cox crush, so I may be biased ;)
  - shangxiao 12y ago
    I would've also had a silly grin on my face due to the epiphany I would've experienced.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    I find this perplexing. Obviously few of us would get to see a feather drop due to the lack of a huge vacuum chamber, but you can derive almost as much experimental entertainment by dropping, say, a ping-pong ball and a similarly sized marble or ball bearing. Really, I think the slow-motion camera has much more educational value than the vacuum chamber (cool as that is). When I was in school and we'd debate such things, I liked to do experiments but dropping things of different weight off the roof only takes you so far, as people might object that they hit the ground a fraction of a second apart but too little of an interval to notice given the relatively low height etc. If I was doing it now I'd just use my camera to tighten things up, and although it's slo-mo capabilities are limited several current consumer models deliver that functionality at affordable prices.
scottlocklin 12y ago
Glad to know I'm not the only one who finds Cox incredibly annoying. FWIIW, the exploratorium in SF and the Boston Science Museum both have experiments of this nature. It is a cool vacuum chamber though. Reading some of the NASA early docs on building such things can be quite fun.
- smackfu 12y ago
  I think the backlash against Cox is almost cliché at this point.
  - anigbrowl 12y ago
    I'd never heard of him before this morning, but this style of overly-polished TV production is common in the US as well. One of the things that irritates me about it is that they expend significant budgets on presenting and dramatizing quite basic things in science (which is a good thing) but all this experiential/eye-candy stuff comes at the expense of covering less material.
    - res0nat0r 12y ago
      This is appealing to the userbase who would never watch a dry boring scientific show in the first place, not hardcore science geeks.
    - lobster_johnson 12y ago
      If you're looking for science documentaries with a little more depth, look at the series done by Jim Al-Khalili (eg., "Atom", "Absolute Zero" or "Chemistry: A Volatile History") and Michael Moseley ("The Story of Science"). In "The Story of Science", Moseley covers much the same ground as James Burke's famous "Connections" (and also his highly-esteemed "The Day thee Universe Changed") -- albeit in a more literal and less literary angle -- or indeed Sagan's eminent "Cosmos". Al-Khalili is a physicist, though, and I think his documentaries are more to the point than Cox's, even if they're also full of excellent photography. Definitely less bubbly.
eevilspock 12y ago
Do you not have kids or rarely interact/play with kids? Kids are no, even though I know the relevant laws of physics and was intellectually not surprised, I was still in awe and it still violates my instinctive expectations. A visual equivalent to stepping onto a broken escalator.
nly 12y ago
His 'boyish wonder', although personally I think it's genuine, does get annoying to those of us who have their own wonder to contend with. Though, perhaps, those completely devoid of it themselves appreciate the cues. I really don't mind Cox... what I despise is the trend of putting comedians in to science and politics shows in an attempt to relieve the dowdiness (Sorry Dara). Then again, I'm one of those people who used to sneak downstairs in the early hours to watch the dusty math and science stuff the BBC used to broadcast for teachers to record on VHS.
- ambler0 12y ago
  Alan Alda has done a great job of bringing charisma and humor to science shows without dumbing anything down. The key is to find a comedian/actor/whatever who has a genuine interest in the material.
- gadders 12y ago
  I agree. Have you ever tried listening to The Infinite Monkey Cage on BBC Radio 4? [1] It's motto seems to be "Look at us! We're scientists but we're so wacky!!!111" http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr0w http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr0w
  - JonnieCache 12y ago
    Robin Ince certainly has a lot to answer for. Ben Goldacre is the master of this style of science communication. Friendly and fun and enthusiastic, but in a way that appeals to both laymen and his peers. I suppose epidemiology is somewhat more human than astrophysics, so its easier.
    - gadders 12y ago
      Frontiers [1] also on Radio 4 is good. [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qy5p http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qy5p
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
ytturbed 12y ago
The value of his 'boyish wonder face' is that he's emotionally open, relatively speaking, and therefore we perceive that he's not consciously deceiving us in ways that he thinks important. It shouldn't matter, of course, since explanations either stand or they don't. But it seems that so much public discourse is infected with paranoia and conspiracy theory, including around space history.

kyberias 12y ago

Exactly. I was frantically searching the video for this. Did they show it?

danielweber 12y ago

With the HTML5 player you can double the speed; it's entirely in browser, so you can probably capture the Javascript event and make it go at 5x or 10x or whatever is needed to play at full speed. (It'll be up to you to then dub in Yakety Sax.)

apcherry 12y ago

For me the "weird"/unusual/interesting thing is seeing the feathers bounce after hitting the ground.

thaumaturgy 12y ago

Somebody on Reddit took that scene, sped it up to something close to normal time, and made a gif: http://gfycat.com/GentleMeaslyFattaileddunnart http://gfycat.com/GentleMeaslyFattaileddunnart

christiangenco 12y ago
The acceleration looks wrong. It looks like the show altered the footage to have constant speed, and Reddit just sped it up.

mhartl 12y ago

Not wanting to wait through the prologue, I skipped ahead in the video, where I searched in vain for the real-time drop. It's bizarre that they apparently didn't show it even once, especially since it can't have taken more than a few seconds (the chamber's height is 37.2 meters [1], so t_max = √(2h/g) = √(2×37.2/9.8) = 2.75 s). [1]: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2819205/Testing-gravity-world-s-BIGGEST-vacuum-chamber-Watch-Brian-Cox-prove-bowling-ball-feathers-fall-together.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2819205/Testi...