It has often struck me how many elementary actions go into even simple making tasks. If you list everything, right down to picking up your pencil and later putting it down again, the actions soon add up. To put some numbers to this thought, I made the the video below. As I made a rebated Continue reading Actions
In a previous post I showed the photograph below and wrote about some other demonstrations of coloured shadows. In a subsequent post I discussed how coloured shadows appear to obey the rules of subtractive colour mixing, rather than the rules of additive colour mixing that you d expect to apply, given that the coloured shadows appear Continue reading More on coloured shadows
Although we live in a 3D world, we aren t always very good at judging the volumes of things. A few years ago I had the idea of exploring our (mis)judgements of volume by making a collection of differently-shaped objects, all of which had a volume of a pint. I didn t do anything about it at Continue reading Pints
The video above is a night-time time-lapse video taken from Portobello, Edinburgh looking roughly north over the Firth of Forth towards the coast of Fife, a few miles away. I made the video in March 2022. Look at the vertical relative movement of the distant lights. I believe that this is caused by atmospheric refraction Continue reading Atmospheric refraction in the Firth of Forth
This post is merely to provide a link to a video of a mathematical machine that I made over the Christmas holidays. Even if maths isn t your thing, you might enjoy the movements and the rhythms.
If you re running an endurance race such as a 10K, half-marathon, or marathon, it might seem obvious that the quickest way of getting to the finishing line is to run continuously over the entire distance. But some people (notably Jeff Galloway) suggest that, particularly if you re a slower runner, you might actually finish sooner if Continue reading Walk-run strategies in running races
This is my contribution to Portobello Window Wonderland 2021. The instructions told us to display something close to your heart . Understanding my place in the universe is something very close to my heart, and understanding the night sky is part of that. My contribution is a time-lapse representation of the movement across the sky of Continue reading Great Conjunction Street
Carbon emissions and climate change are a huge story in the news at the moment, and the aviation industry is, quite rightly, often in the spotlight. There is talk of using biofuels to partially or completely displace fossil fuels in aviation. That s easy to say, but how much land would be needed to produce the Continue reading Biofuels in aviation
In the previous post I looked at how coloured shadows are formed. As I wrote it, I realised how much there is to learn from the coloured shadows demonstration; that s what this post is about. The image above shows coloured shadows cast by a white paper disc with a grey surround. In the image at Continue reading Red, green, and blue make black!
This is a photograph that I took as a response to a challenge that was set by photographer Kim Ayres as part of his weekly podcast Understanding Photography. The challenge was to produce a photo where the main interest was provided by shadows. I lit a rose cutting using red, green, and blue lights that Continue reading Coloured shadows