Category: History

F.L.Wright (De)Tours

~ mehopper

It never ceases to amaze me how clicking on an innocent little link to a news story can turn into an unexpected, intriguing adventure.

For example, I clicked on a link to this story about a Frank Lloyd Wright house that will be going on the market.

A Frank Lloyd Wright Home in N.H. Will Hit the Market for $850,000 (Brittany Bowker, Boston.com)

The house is known as the Kalil House, and as is generally the case with Wright houses, there’s an interesting aspect to the architecture. In this case the house is one of seven “Usonian Automatic Houses” that Wright designed. They were intended to be moderately priced and used concrete blocks that could be assembled in a variety of ways.

That sounded like a sort of “LEGO” house, so I wanted to know more!

First, I found this video that shows the house.

Paula Martin Group (YouTube Channel)
Paula Martin Group (Official Website)

Interesting concept, but not my personal favorite example of Wright architecture.

However, while I was trying to find out more about how the house looked, something else caught my attention. The website for the sale of the house had a 3D tour.

Neat! Of course, I had to check that out!

That tour was created using a platform called Matterport. The core of their business is that they do a 3D scan of a space and host the 3D model on their platform so users can navigate by simply matching a blue circle attached to their cursor to white circles on the 360° image and clicking.

Matterport is clearly used for selling high-end real estate, but it’s also been used for other types of spaces, and their website has a gallery of interesting tours. The Arts & Culture and Historic sections feature hundreds of great sites. No surprise, I took some (de)tours.

I also accidentally tripped over something else.

There’s another Wright house up for sale, or in this case auction, in October. It’s in Phoenix, and it’s known as the Circular Sun House or the Norman Lykes House.

Heritage Auctions (YouTube Channel)
Heritage Auctions (Official Website)

Better yet, there was another 3D tour of it!

Once I found that, I decided a try a simple Google Search to find out if there were any other 3D tours of Wright houses
.
Sure enough, there were, which also meant more (de)tours for me!

There was even a tour of Taliesin West, which was Wright’s desert laboratory that was mentioned in the video about the Norman Lykes House.

Then my journey took yet another unexpected turn due to this article.

Take A 3D Virtual Tour of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West (Katharine Keane, Architectural Digest)

That article was innocent enough, but it had a link to this article from a few years ago.

10 Facts About Frank Lloyd Wright You Didn’t Know (Carrie Hojnicki, Architectural Digest)

Here’s a sample of what’s in the article.

For all the praise Frank Lloyd Wright garnered in his 70-year career, the architect was equally a magnet for controversy in all its forms. With three wives and eight children (seven biological, one adopted), the architect spent much of his adult life racking up sensational, though not untrue, headlines like “SUIT ENDS WRIGHT ROMANCE; Sculptress Who Fled With Architect to Japan Obtains Alimony” (New York Times) or “ISSUE WARRANT FOR WRIGHT; Architect’s Wife Seeks to Re-enter Their Wisconsin Home” (also New York Times), each referring the personal tumult that seemed to follow the architect through much of his adult life.

Wow, so Mr. Wright wasn’t boring!

I did a tad more research about Wright’s life and found a trailer for a documentary about him entitled Frank Lloyd Wright: Murder, Myth & Modernism. It starts out covering his architecture, but it doesn’t end there!

Movies & TV (YouTube Channel)

I found out more about the “Murder” in the title of the movie in a YouTube video from the Smithsonian Channel entitled A Horrific Tragedy at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home, but it was so gruesome that I could not bring myself to include anything but a link to it here. I will caution you that you should take the word “horrific” seriously as you decide whether or not to click the link and watch the video!

I’ll stop sharing my own (de)tours here, but if you want to take some further ones on your own, then there are plenty of places to find out more about Wright’s work and his extraordinary life. You can check out the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust (YouTube Channel). The Architectural Digest has a very nice section. Then, of course, there’s good old Encyclopædia Britannica and last, but not least, Wikipedia.

Finally, on a brighter note, according to an article on Atlas Obscura, the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy says that there tend to be between 15 to 20 properties for sale at any one time. These days, a fairly high percentage of those are bound to have 360° tours to explore, so that means that Wright fans can enjoy some new Wright architecture (de)tours with just a bit of clicking.

Find out more about architecture and arts in general…

The Maya Underworld

~ mehopper

Chichén Itzá is a fascinating place, and believe it or not, it’s just gotten even more so!

But let’s start from the beginning.

In case you aren’t familiar with it, here’s a link to a 360° video that will give you a sense of why it is considered a World Wonder.

Seven Wonders of the World: Chichén Itzá | 360 Video (The New York Times, YouTube)

It’s hard to believe that such a place could become more intriguing, but I just stumbled across another 360° video in which archaeologist Guillermo de Anda explains how there’s more below El Castillo than meets the eye — a lot more!

Inside Chichén Itzá | 360 Video (National Geographic< YouTube)

That video hardly scratches the surface of what Guillermo de Anda and Gran Acuífero Maya are discovering about underwater caves and their importance to the Maya.

Not only was Chichén Itzá built over a cave, but that cave is connected to Sistema Sac Actun which is now considered to be the largest underwater cave system in the world. In addition, sinkholes called cenotes serve as a network of entrances to the cave system!

Al Jazeera (YouTube Channel)
Al Jazeera (Official Website)

The most mind boggling thing of all is that divers are finding both Maya relics and much, much older human artifacts in the the underwater caves. Here’s a link to a video about the discovery.

Divers Discover 215-Mile-Long Cave in Mexico Full of Mayan Relics (Business Insider, YouTube)

Here are links to where you can learn more about these discoveries!

Remains of Maya Underworld Found in World’s Longest Submerged Cave (Megan Gannon, Live Science)
Cave Full of Untouched Maya Artifacts Found at Chichén Itzá (Jason Daley, Smithsonian Magazine)
World’s Largest Underwater Cave System Discovered in Mexico (Jason Daley, Smithsonian Magazine)

Follow these links to learn more about Chichén Itzá!

City of Chichén Itzá (UNESCO World Heritage Centre)
Chichén Itzá (National Geographic)

Find out more about Mexico, the Americas, the World and History …

Lunar Landings

~ mehopper

Saturday, July 20th is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, and there’s a massive media blitz surrounding the occasion. Pretty much every major news outlet is covering it in some way, and it’s no surprise that NASA is leading the publicity frenzy.

On Friday at 1 p.m. (EDT) NASA is broadcasting 50 Years Ago Apollo 11 Launches Into History on NASA Live.

NASA (YouTube Channel)
NASA (Official Website)

There are also a ton of related events going on all over the place — there’s bound to be something going on near you!

For example, here are a few links to stories about how the restored Apollo Mission Control Center at NASA Johnson Space Center is opening this weekend.
Restoring Apollo Mission Control Center (NASA)
Apollo Mission Control Reopens in All Its Historic Glory, July 20 (NASA)

In honor of this momentous occasion, and being the total space buff that I am, I couldn’t resist dipping into my personal trove of “Moon Media” and rummaging around to find a few tidbits that might not show up in mainstream news stories.

Let’s start with the Apollo 11 Command Module that \resides at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. A team there did a full 3-D scan of it, so among other things, you can tour it online (Smithsonian fully digitized the Apollo 11 Command Module).

Here’s a link to a trailer about the project.

Smithsonian Gives Virtual Look Inside Apollo 11 (Wall Street Journal, YouTube)

You can explore it here!

Here’s an article some of the neat details that you can see in the module.

Apollo 11: The Writings on the Wall (Allan Needell, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)

If you’re a computer buff, then you might get a kick out of this video.

How Did the Apollo Flight Computers Get Men to the Moon and Back? (Paul Shillito, YouTube).

The website Virtual AGC — AGS — LVDC — Gemini also has tons of information about computer simulations of the guidance computers used in the Apollo lunar missions.

If you want a glimpse into at least part of the calculations that the Apollo computers had to do to get humans to the moon, then try your hand at the game Lunar Lander. There’s an example of it on the Web thanks to the artist Seb Lee-Delisle who created it as part of his Lunar Trails exhibit. His version is called Moon Lander.

Of course, my archive happens to have a few relevant 360° videos 🙂

My favorite one is this two minute simulation of Apollo 11’s landing and the first moonwalk.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Seymour & Lerhn (YouTube Channel)
Seymour & Lerh (Official Website)

That’s great, but it’s a tad short on realism.

Here’s a link to a more realistic 360° video about Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan’s last walk on the moon in 1972 that has a panorama created from photos that he took at the time.

VR Walk on the Moon with Gene Cernan (USA TODAY, YouTube)

Here’s another one minute 360° video of the same stills where you can look around and feel as if you are really standing on the Moon!

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Apollo 360 (YouTube Channel)

If you want to experience some more “real” moon imagery, then try out Google Moon!

Hardcore Apollo 11 fans might also enjoy the two plus hours of NASA’s restored video Moonwalk, and NASA even uploaded all of the 9,000 hours of audio from the Apollo 11 mission to the Internet Archive.

Cool stuff!

However, if you’re only looking for a fun way to kick off the weekend, then take a ride on this Space Mountain-esque 360° video complete with audio from the Apollo 11 Mission!

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

VR 360 TV (YouTube Channel)
VR 360 TV (Discord)

Happy Moon Adventures!

If you want to learn more about space and space travel, explore Space Depot!

Touch the 360° image to begin exploring, touch the objects and doors to enter virtual 360° experiences, and touch “i”s to learn about the experiences.


You can also explore it on Kuula.

Find out more about the Moon and space travel…

Periodic Party

~ mehopper

Hey, it is the Periodic Table’s Birthday!

Dmitri Mendeleev sketched his first draft of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements on February 17, 1869.

Notice that this year’s a “big one” for the Periodic Table — it’s 150 years old!

In fact, it’s such a big deal that the United Nations General Assembly and UNESCO have gone so far as to declare this the International Year of the Periodic Table (2019 IYPT).

Of course, unless you’re a chemist by trade, it’s fairly unlikely that you’ve heard about this.

That’s a shame, too — who knows where we would all be without the handy dandy thing.

So celebrate!

Here are some suggestions for how to do it…

First off, rather than sing Happy Birthday, you could try to sing Tom Lehrer’s The Elements.

Here’s a link to a video of Daniel Radcliffe pulling it off in about a minute.

Daniel Radcliffe sings “The Elements” (The Graham Norton Show, YouTube)

In case you’re not familiar with Tom Lehrer’s music, here’s a link where you can learn more about the awesome guy.

Tom Lehrer at 90: a life of scientific satire (Andrew Robinson, Nature)

I also found a video where someone created an animation to go with Tom Lehrer’s version

Timwi Terby (YouTube Channel)

Here’s different fun one you could try to sing.

Partha Pratim Manna

Lest you believe that caring about such things is for boring old, incredibly geeky grown-ups, here’s a link to a segment from The Ellen Show where a 3-year old shows she knows her stuff.

Adorable 3-Year-Old Periodic Table Expert Brielle (The Ellen Show)

Slightly older children might enjoy a tradition of reading Harry Helium and the Noble Gases Party (Good Reads).

For the more intellectually minded, you could hold a discussion about the alternative life stories of the Periodic Table.

Here are some resources to get your started.

The periodic tables we almost had (Mark Lorch, Quartz)
Alternate Periodic Table Designs (Western Oregon University)
The Internet Database of Periodic Tables (The Chemogenesis Web Book)

Finally, if you do want to throw a party, Etsy’s got you covered.

Periodic Table Party (Etsy)

Here are more resources to help you celebrate…

The International Year of the Periodic Table (2019 IYPT)

An unelementary affair: 150 years of the periodic table (Robert P Crease, Physics World)
How the Periodic Table Went from a Sketch to an Enduring Masterpiece (Tom Siegfried, Science News)

Setting the Table (Phillip Szuromi, Science Magazine)
Ordering the Elements (Michael D. Gordin, Science Magazine)

The Periodic Table of Elements in Pictures and Words (Keith Enevoldsen, Elements.wlonk.com)
This Awesome Periodic Table Tells You How to Actually Use All Those Elements (BEC CREW, Science Alert)

Periodic Table of Elements (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry)
Interactive Periodic Table of Elements (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
Periodic Table (American Chemical Society)

Find out more about the periodic table …

Creepy Old Bots

~ mehopper

Before there were robots, there were automata.

Automata are old-fashioned robot like contraptions, and they tend to make the news from time to time.

The latest example is a 360° video featurette from the BBC about The House of Automata. Here’s a link to that video.

The Strange Dolls That Come to Life (BBC Global)

Personally, I find the creatures like the ones in that video a bit creepy.

It turns out that I’m not alone. Here’s a whole video about creepy automatons.

Slapped Ham (YouTube Channel)

The thing I find even creepier than the bots in the video is what people paid for them!

It must be an acquired taste.

While many automata of a certain age tend to be kind of creepy, some aren’t so bad. In fact, they come in all shapes and sizes, and some of them can be quite pretty as well as fascinating.

A great place to see that as well as to learn about automata is at the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ. That’s because Murtogh Guinness, of Guinness beer fame, was an avid collector of automata and their close relatives, mechanical musical instruments. He left his entire collection of more than 700 gadgets to the Mooris Museum.

Here’s a video and link about that motherload of automata.

The Midnight Archive (YouTube Channel)
The Midnight Archive (Official Website)

Musical Machines & Living Dolls: Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata from the Murtogh D. Guinness Collection (Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ)

Here’s a link to the history of Pierre Jaquet-Droz’s lovely artists mentioned in the video.

Pierre Jaquet-Droz’s Writer, Lady Musician and Draftsman (History of Computers)

While it doesn’t always make the news, there is a surprisingly large community of fans of both old and new automata. There’s even a yearly AutomataCon at the Morris Museum.

Find out more about automata and bots in general …

Méliès Doodled!

~ mehopper

You’re almost certainly familiar with Google’s Doodles. They’re an excellent, entertaining way to spend some time learning something new, in passing, every day. They also almost always point to some little known, but interesting backstory. Today’s Doodle is a particularly beautiful example of that. It celebrates Georges Méliès, and it is special for many reasons.

One reason is that it’s Google’s first Doodle that’s a 360° video. Here is a link to see it.

360 Google Doodles/Spotlight Stories Back to the Moon (Google Spotlight Stories, YouTube)

If you’re reading this after the Doodle’s gone, then check out the archived version of Celebrating Georges Méliès. As always, it looks better if you increase the video quality to the highest level that your viewing device will support, and you might need to watch it a few times through to catch all of the action and detail.

The video is fun on its own, but it is guaranteed to send cinema history buffs over the moon. If you don’t happen to be a cinema history buff, then it will take a bit of explaining to help you see why the Doodle is SO awesome. However, I’ll confess that, having taught cinema history at MIT and then other places in Boston over the years, it’s hard to know where to begin. It could easily be a semester long course, but here’s the shortest version I can manage.

The best place to start is with explaining why Georges Méliès was so special. Here’s a mini-documentary I use to introduce him. It’s kind of hokey, but it gets the job done.

DYnazty (YouTube Channel)

If you happen to have seen Scorsese’s Hugo, then you’re already way ahead. That movie was a tribute to cinema history in general as well as Méliès specifically. Here’s a review by that explains the myriad of ways that is true.

Jack’s Movie Reviews (YouTube Channel)
Jack’s Movie Reviews (Twitter)

By the way, here’s Hugo’s fantastic introduction to cinema history.

TheAOL102 (YouTube Channel)

It can’t be done any better than that! Now that you’re up to speed on Méliès and his role in cinema history, here’s a link to a “behind the scenes” look at how the Google’s Doodle, Spotlight Stories and Arts & Culture Teams collaborated with Cinémathèque Française (Wikipedia).

Behind the Scenes Back to the Moon (Google Spotlight Stories, YouTube)

This isn’t the first time that Google collaborated with Cinémathèque Française to create a 360° video celebrating Méliès and his role in cinema. Here’s a link to a video where the Google Arts & Culture Team also worked with them to create a piece entitled Kinoscope.

Kinoscope – A Virtual Reality Journey into the World of Cinema (Google Arts & Culture, YouTube)

The video was created in conjunction with the exhibit The Cinema Machine: from Méliès to 3D that ran at Cinémathèque Française. The show is no longer there, but here’s a nice review.

Critic’s Notebook: Exploring the Nuts and Bolts of Filmmaking at the Cinematheque Francaise (Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter)

You can also see Cinémathèque’s Collection on Google Arts & Culture.

Finally, as a bonus, here’s another interesting 360° video clip I stumbled across that shows the history of VR in movies in a VResque format.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Raging Cinema (YouTube Channel)

Find out more about cinema and art in general …

Dinos for Geeks

~ mehopper

There’s been a lot of cool news for dinosaur lovers lately.

The most bizarre story is about an extinct lizard called Saniwa ensidens that had four eyes.

Here’s Why an Ancient Lizard Had 4 Eyes (Laura Geggel, Live Science)

Creative-Tube (YouTube Channel)

There are also some massive 170 million year old dinosaur footprints from the Jurassic period that have been discovered on Scotland’s Isle Of Skye.

Huge Dinosaur Footprints Discovered on Scottish Coast (Michael Greshko, National Geographic)
A sauropod-dominated tracksite from Rubha nam Brathairean, Isle of Skye, Scotland (Paige E. dePolo, et. al., Scotish Journal of Geology)

That’s cool news for dinosaur lovers, but it’s not all that geeky.

Before we dive into the really geeky stuff, check out this 360° video from the American Museum of National History in which Mike Novacek describes how Roy Chapman Andrews led an expedition to the Gobi Desert back in the 1920s.

American Museum of Natural History (YouTube Channel)
American Museum of Natural History (Official Website)

You can find out a ton more about the expeditions and dinosaurs in general on the American Museum of National History YouTube Channel series Dinosaurs Explained.

That’s probably the kind of methodology that you think of when you think about paleontology. Paleontologists do still use those traditional field methods, but they also use some fairly geeky technology these days. Here’s a video in which paleontologist Ken Lacovara explains how his field uses laser scanning and 3D modeling.

Live Science (YouTube Channel)
ive Science (Official Website)

Here’s a link to an even geekier video and related story about how the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is scanning and printing fossils.

How to 3D Print a Dinosaur (Mashable, YouTube)
Hold a T-Rex Bone in Your Bare Hands, Invites Smithsonian (Eric Larson, Mashable)

Doesn’t all that talk about 3D dinosaur parts make you just itch to see a complete one?

Here’s a 360° video in which paleontologist Dr. Ken Lacovara “shows” us a giant dinosaur called Dreadnoughtus while he explains how it was discovered. If you have a powerful computer, change the quality setting on the video to 1080s for a more impressive experience.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Jaunt XR (YouTube Channel)
Jaunt XR (Facebook)

This wasn’t the first neat 360° video about dinosaurs. Over a year ago Sir David Attenborough worked with BBC One to make a 360° video to introduce the biggest dinosaur ever discovered. Here’s a link to that video, and again, increase the video quality for a better experience.

Meet the Largest Dinosaur Ever Discovered – Attenborough and the Giant Dinosaur (BBC One, YouTube)

The BBC also published a website with more backstory about the project. If you follow the link, be sure to also click the tabs for more information.

BBC Taster Attenborough 360 (BBC)

Here’s another story about the project.

Sir David Attenborough set to Reveal the Biggest Dinosaur Ever to Walk the Planet in Upcoming BBC Show (Doug Bolton, The Independent)

Finally, I saved the geekiest stuff for last. If you crave realistic extinct creatures, how about some real ones? Impossible, you think? Not necessarily! De-extinction is a real thing that is being actively explored, and while true dinosaurs are still far fetched, species that only went extinct within the last 500 years or so are not all that far out of reach.

Here’s a link to a video and news story about the state of the art in resurrecting extinct species as well as the complex pros and cons of doing so.

How Close Are We to Resurrecting Extinct Species? (Seeker, YouTube)
The Increasingly Realistic Prospect of “Extinct Animal” Zoos (Christine Ro, BBC)

Find out more about dinosaurs …

Maya Megalopolis

~ mehopper

You may remember learning about the Maya in school, and you may have heard of Chichén Itzá (UNESCO) because it is often included on recent lists of “World Wonders” (as well as being a convenient day drive from Cancún). Here’s a link to a 360° video that will give you a sense of what it’s like to see Chichén Itzá.

Seven Wonders of the World: Chichén Itzá | 360 Video (The New York Times, YouTube)

There are also other less heavily promoted places where you can see Maya ruins, and one of the most impressive and famous is in Tikal, Guatemala (UNESCO). Here’s a link to a 360° video that will give you a sense of what it’s like to visit those ruins.

Tikal, Guatemala 360 VR Temple Number 2 (Miguel Barreto MAC, YouTube)

It is actually these ruins that are receiving more attention right now, and that is because an organization called Fundación Patrimonio Cultural y Natural Maya (Pacunam) backed a project to use a “laser” technology called Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to discover and map what is being called a “megalopolis” built by the Maya from 250 to 950 CE. Here are links to a video and two news stories about it.

Lasers On Planes Used To Reveal Massive Complex Of Mayan Ruins (NBC Nightly News, YouTube)

Sprawling Maya Network Discovered under Guatemala Jungle (BBC)
Laser Mapping Uncovers Dozens of Ancient Mayan Cities (Oscar Holland, CNN)

Here is a link to a slightly longer, in-depth story that also mentions a nifty Augmented Reality (AR) application that makes it possible to “navigate” LiDAR data.

Scientists Use Laser Technology to Uncover More Mayan Ruins (CBS Mornings, YouTube)

Find out more about the Americas, the World and History …

Leonardo Lately

~ mehopper

Leonardo da Vinci sure gets press for a gentleman who hasn’t been around for five centuries! That’s not to say that it’s not well deserved. Here’s a brief video that gives just a glimpse of why he was such an amazing guy.

Past Vault (YouTube Channel)

The Smile

Of course, one perennial reason for Leonardo’s popularity is the never ending fascination with how he achieved Mona Lisa’s smile. This video is about just one study about it.

Newsy Entertainment (YouTube Channel)

Here’s a link to a video that further explains the fantastic techniques that Leonardo used to create the illusions that make the painting so enigmatic.

How Leonardo Da Vinci Augmented Reality More Than 500 Years Ago (The Atlantic)

Unfortunately, it’s hard for an average person to actually experience the effect for themselves. In case you’ve never been to the Louvre and tried to see the original, here’s a 360° Video that will give you a sense of what you will probably encounter (skip to 2 minutes into video).

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

360 Vacation VR (YouTube Channel)

The Genius

One of the above videos was made to accompany a story by Walter Isaacson about Leonardo da Vinci in the The Atlantic, and that story is a sample of the book Leonardo da Vinci that Isaacson has just added to his pantheon of biographies about geniuses (Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs).

Here’s an inspiring 2 minute video where Isaacson talks about Leonardo’s creativity.

New Scientist (YouTube Channel)
New Scientist (Official Website)

Here’s a link to another video where Isaacson discusses the book.

Walter Isaacson on Accessible Genius of Leonardo da Vinci (CBS, YouTube)

The Auction

It is probably no coincidence that Isaacson’s book was timed to coincide with the auction of Leonardo’s last painting in private hands — the Salvator Mundi was auctioned at Christie’s.

Associated Press (YouTube Channel)
Associated Press (Official Website)

Here’s a link to a video from Christie’s that explains the importance of the painting.

In truth, though, the authenticity of the painting still remains controversial in some circles.

Mystery over Christ’s orb in $100m Leonardo da Vinci painting (Dalya Alberge, The Guardian)

The painting ended up going to Saudi Arabian Prince Badr bin Abdullah, and the Wikipedia page about it keeps tabs on its whereabouts and exhibition status.

The Movie

Good news — Leonardo as Leonardo may be coming to a screen near you! Leonardo DiCaprio, who is named after da Vinci, is going to be starring in a movie about his namesake, and it will be based upon Isaacson’s book.

Here’s a link to a story about about the project.

The Role Leonardo DiCaprio Was Literally Born to Play (Yohana Desta, Vanity Fair)

Given what Leonardo da Vinci himself documented about his own exotic exploits, well, that should be “interesting” — it would be hard to be boring. Okay, it has the potential to be pretty gruesome, but fascinating nonetheless.

If you want to know about Leonardo da Vinci, but can’t wait for the movie, here’s a link to an older documentary.

Leonardo’s Universe (National Geographic, YouTube)

You can also find out a ton more about Leonardo on The History Channel and Wikipedia.

Find out more about the time I met Walter Isaacson at Harvard…

Finally, here are links to some other, related posts on Cosma.

Walk-in-Art
Art Revisited
Dive-in-Art
Magical Paintings
Into Van Gogh
Walk-in-Art & Museums!

Enjoy, but beware, it’s easy to get lost in 360° art!

Find out more about the arts and history…

Sexagesimal

~ mehopper

If you don’t happen to know the definition of Sexagesimal (Wolfram, Wikipedia), you might think it could be some strange kind of activity that goes on at festivals like Burning Man (Wired, Wikipedia). If you happen to be a computer geek, you might have guessed it has something to do with numbers (as in binary, hex, etc.), and you would be right. If you’re a numbers geek or a mathematician, then you probably already know the cool research that this post is going to be describing.

But first, here’s a bit of review for those who are neither numbers geeks nor mathematicians. You were probably taught in school that there are different ways of counting. We use “base 10”, but there are other number systems. For example, computers are based on binary (base 2), and there is a group of people who would like to revolutionize the world by using duodecimal (base 12). Here’s a nice video that explains all about “Base Number Systems.”

Macmatics (YouTube Channel)

Well, the ancient Babylonian’s used sexagesimal (base 60), and some new research suggests that they not only beat the ancient Greeks at inventing Trigonometry (Wikipedia), they also may have been able to do it better. Here’s a video and story about the research that was conducted by Daniel F. Mansfield and N.J. Wildberger from the University of New South Wales and published in Historia Mathematica.

University of New South Wales (YouTube Channel)
University of New South Wales (Official Website)

Plimpton 322 is Babylonian Exact Sexagesimal Trigonometry (Daniel F. Mansfield & N.J. Wildberger, Historia Mathematica)

Here are more videos and articles about the research.

Science Magazine (YouTube Channel)
Science Magazine (Official Website)

This 3,700-Year-Old Babylonian Clay Tablet Just Changed The History of Maths (David Sield, Science Alert)
Math Whizzes of Ancient Babylon Figured Out Forerunner of Calculus (Ron Cowen, AAAS Science Magazine)
Ancient Babylonian Astronomers Calculated Jupiter’s Position from the Area Under a Time-Velocity Graph (Mathieu Ossendrijver, AAAS Science)

So, there you have it, sexagesimal is neat stuff!

Find out more about math …