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Yesterday a huge water fight broke out in Uptown Waterloo near my house. The water fight was part of the Square2Square festival that shut down King street for pedestrian traffic to link the Waterloo and Kitchener city centers.
I grabbed my Panasonic GH1 and filmed the chaos; it was the perfect opportunity to try out my new Light Craft Workshop Fader ND Mark II filter on the camera. In a few weeks I plan to do a full review of the Fader ND. Edited on Final Cut Pro X.
I was wondering how long it would take someone to turn Mitch Benn's Double-slit rap about our experiment into a Youtube video. Apparently not long at all. Here it is below. Maybe I'll take a crack at turning it into a Youtube video someday.
It seems that June is the month of the double slit with all of the media attention. Last week IQC participated in the awesome Steel Rail Sessions, sponsoring an art installation modelled on a human scale double-slit experiment. Darin and David White from Makebright are the artists behind this cool project. The installation consists of two "slits" (paths) through which participants can pass. A webcam embedded in each slit takes the person's picture as they walk through, and the picture shows up on a distant projected screen. If two people walk through each slit simultaneously then the pictures "interfere" and are smeared out as they are projected—wavelike behaviour. A neat piece sitting at the intersection of art and science.
Evan, Colin, and myself were on hand to explain the physics behind the original double-slit experiment to the participants on the train. David has posted a great write up about the behind the scenes set up of the project. The Quantum Factory (IQC's blog) also has an interesting overview of the installation and the double slit.
I love living in Waterloo. There is a young, vibrant, arts community that is interested in Science, and a constant stream of awesome events. This past weekend I participated in the Steel Rail Sessions, a series of art exhibits and installations located on a train! There were even snakes. Between this and the cardboard fort project it has been an amazing weekend. Here is a video I shot of the event:
The Institute for Quantum Computing sponsored an exhibit on the double slit experiment. I also have a video of this that will be going up shortly. Throughout the evening a group of us talked physics with the train participants.
The train ride was incredible, but what really took the cake was the live jazz band (Dinny and the Allstars) that greeted us as we got back to the station with cotton candy and donuts. The band then led us in a second line to the art gallery for an awesome after party. The Waterloo Record has a good write up on the event as well.
Big shout out to Hilary Abel and the other organizers for pulling this together. I hope to be back next year.
This past weekend Jaime and I (along with our friends Nancy and Nyree) attended the Cardboard Fort Project, an event run by Chat Perdu Productions and sponsored by the Awesome Foundation Toronto. I took along my camera and shot some video which I have edited into a little short below. Unfortunately, my battery died before I could get footage of the final forts (which were awesome). Luckily there are plenty of photos up on Flickr already.
The event was organized by Sherwin. From the Awesome Foundations blog post on the night, Sherwin describes the event as:
> Like a cat, I think my favourite toy was always plain brown cardboard boxes. The holy grail when I was a kid was to get those discarded refrigerator boxes, because they were so big and creamy smooth. You got the feeling that you could make anything out of that. The idea behind this night is to bring back that feeling.
A big shout out to Sherwin, Chat Perdu Productions, and the Awesome Foundation for putting on such a successful (and awesome) event!
Update: Both shows are now sold out! Two free evenings of magic and science!
Magician Dan Trommater and I are teaming up once againfor a pair of fun, fascinating evenings exploring how the magic of Harry Potter mirrors the real magic of the quantum world. Levitation, teleportation and more—discover how these phenomena exist not only in Harry Potter's world, but in the quantum realm that underlies our world too.
Here is a trailer for the talk:
This is a non-profit educational event aimed at anyone who loves the magic of science. Dan and I held a similar event last year in Toronto that was a huge success. This year's show will be even better!
SPACE IS LIMITED Reserve your free ticket here.
Thursday July 14, 6:30pm - 8:30pm Friday July 15, 6:30pm - 8:30pm Princess Twin Cinema, Waterloo, ON
For more information, visit or check out the Facebook event page.
Sponsored by the Institute for Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo.
Last week my friend and occasional arch-nemesis, Dr. Robert Prevedel, turned 30. Here is a video montage I took to mark the occasion.
The first thing Robert did to celebrate his new found old age was to participate in a triathlon. Happy birthday and best of luck in the coming year!
This past Friday was my PhD convocation ceremony at the University of Toronto. It was great to have so many of my family members there! We were called up two-by-two during the ceremony, and I heel clicked as I was being presented. Fortunately my mom caught the moment on video.
Popular Science linked to this amazing video. Taken at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), located at the top of a mountain in Chile's Atacama Desert, these are some of the coolest time-lapse pictures I have seen of stars in the night sky. The four telescopes are part of a stellar observatory; they work together to achieve a resolving power much greater than any of the individual telescopes. From the ESO website:
The Very Large Telescope array (VLT) is the flagship facility for European ground-based astronomy at the beginning of the third Millennium. It is the world's most advanced optical instrument, consisting of four Unit Telescopes with main mirrors of 8.2m diameter and four movable 1.8m diameter Auxiliary Telescopes. The telescopes can work together, in groups of two or three, to form a giant 'interferometer', the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer, allowing astronomers to see details up to 25 times finer than with the individual telescopes. The light beams are combined in the VLTI using a complex system of mirrors in underground tunnels where the light paths must be kept equal to distances less than 1/1000 mm over a hundred metres. With this kind of precision the VLTI can reconstruct images with an angular resolution of milliarcseconds, equivalent to distinguishing the two headlights of a car at the distance of the Moon.
My favourite part of the video is when one of the telescopes shoots a laser up into the night sky. As an aside, this is where parts of the last James Bond movie, A Quantum of Solace, was filmed.
The ESO has a Youtube channel with a number of excellent videos describing various aspects about how the observatory works.
Here is another time lapse I found filmed entirely with a fisheye lens at the Paranal Observatory also located in Chile.
After the past six weeks of exhausting election campaigning and coverage I think Canada deserves a rainbow–a double rainbow to be exact. Here is a simple experiment I came up with using house-hold items to create your very own double rainbow. All you need is a bright light source, a clear jar full of water, and a dark room. It can be a tricky at first to see the double rainbow so stick with it.
Rainbows are usually seen right after a big thunderstorm when the sun is behind you. White light enters the raindrops, bounces around inside, and then is reflected back to the ground. White light is really composed of all the different colours. As the light hits the raindrop, the different colours separate and no longer travel along the same path. Different colours of light leave at different angles.
Inside the raindrops most of the light makes a single bounce and then leaves the raindrops. The light (that is now split into its different colours) forms the primary rainbow that we are used to seeing. Some of the light, however, can continue to bounce around inside the raindrop. This light leaves the raindrop at a different angle forming a second fainter rainbow that appears above the primary rainbow. Because these secondary rainbows are much fainter it is usually only possible to see them when there is a dark background behind them (like black thunder clouds).
To create a rainbow you need two things: a light source (to act like the sun) and a round glass jar full of water (to act like a water droplet).
Let me know how it works out. Special thanks to Jaime Almond who helped me shoot the video as well as Catharine Holloway, Evan Meyer-Scott, and Robert Prevedel for acting like photons.
In Canada there has been a public outrage over the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) decision to impose caps on the amount of data Canadians can download. The government has vowed to overturn this decision, and the head of the CRTC, Konrad Von Fickenstein, was dragged before parliament. Based on this exchange two things became apparent:
The CRTC based their decision almost entirely on data provided by Bell instead of seeking third party, independent, information. Konrad also extensively quoted internet usage statistics from 2009. These are meaningless now; two years ago Netflix did not offer streaming movies and most people were not yet on Facebook, Twitter, or Youtube.
The fight is not over. We must continue to put pressure on our MPs to flatly reject the CRTC desire to impose caps and limits on our internet service.
The CRTC says this "usage based billing" is designed so that people pay for what they use: those who download more should pay more. On the surface this seems fair.
But dig a little deeper and you will find this decision will have devastating consequences for the internet in Canada. The major internet service providers (ISP) like Bell and Rogers offer overpriced and non competitive packages. Canadians already pay far more on average for their internet access that most other developed countries.
There are smaller, excellent, ISPs though who offer much better rates and plans. These independent ISPs often use the physical phone lines that run into your home to deliver the internet. Bell must grant these third party ISPs access to these lines at cost over what is known as "the last mile".
Rather than compete with these ISPs, Bell has won the right from the CRTC to impose individual caps on the amount of data customers of these independent ISPs can download each month. What is worse, if anyone goes over these caps they must pay huge overage fees. These fees go directly to Bell.
The real issue here isn't how much extra Canadian's download, but rather television. Bell has a very lucrative television business that is threatened by the presence of the internet. Services like Netflix offer Canadians the opportunity to affordably watch what we want when we want to. In the coming years, the internet will take over television as our primary source of media consumption. By imposing caps, Bell makes it prohibitively expensive to use the internet for entertainment. It is no coincidence that Bell is currently attempting to take over CTV, one of Canada's largest television networks and the same CRTC appears to be letting them.
How much extra can Bell charge? Previously, for under $40 you could download about 200GB or more / month with a third party ISP. Under the CRTC plan you would be limited to 25GB/month and every GB over this would be billed at $1.90. This is over 100 times what it actually costs per gigabyte. Now, the same plan would cost you over $360/ month plus tax.
To put this in perspective, it would be far cheaper to buy an external hard drive, fill it with data, and send it by Canada Post. For about $110 plus tax you can buy this HDD from Future shop and send it to Afghanistan. In other words, Canada Post is a far more affordable ISP than Bell.
The CRTC has been ordered to revise their UBB decision, but based on the comments of the CRTC head, Konrad von Finckenstein, in the house of commons, it is clear they are still intent on some form of UBB. Any form of UBB is a tax on Canadians. Instead of a regular tax that goes to pay for public services like health care, education, roads, fire, or police services, the proceeds of this tax go straight to Bell.
It is time for the CRTC to get out of bed with Bell and start working for the needs of Canadians. Go to openmedia.ca/meter for more information on how to prevent the CRTC from imposing wrecking the internet in Canada. You can also vote with your wallets: stop giving money to Bell for your internet and instead consider a smaller, more affordable, ISP. Not only will it be cheaper, but you will get better customer service and support.
I just posted a recap of the Ontario Science Centre Cafe Scientifique event I spoke at. Included is some footage from the talk I gave for those who may have missed it.
Entanglement is one of the strangest things about quantum mechanics. So strange that Einstein once called it "Spooky action at a distance".
With the help of magician Dan Trommater, and some physical comedy from Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, one of the main ideas behind entanglement is explained. This video has been entered into the Arstechnica Science Video Contest.
If you have more questions about entanglement, I can try to answer them in the questions. If I have enough time, I may even be able to make a video for you so ask away!
Update: Dan and I are thinking of making some more science/magic videos. If you have some suggestions for topics in physics that you would like to see explained using magic post it in the comments below.
This is a talk I gave last year at the University of Toronto that used Harry Potter to explain quantum physics. Topics covered included teleportation, quantum superposition, the properties of light, how rainbows are formed, how 3D glasses in movie cinemas work, quantum entanglement, and quantum computing. Magician extraordinaire Dan Trommater was on hand to help demonstrate some of the physics using magic. The Space channel filmed part of the talk and are periodically running it over the next few months.
Here is the blurb describing the talk: > The universe of Harry Potter is filled with magic and wonder. Yet it is not that different from the world we inhabit. Just beneath the surface of our ordinary lives lies a shocking quantum reality. This talk is an introduction to some of the cutting edge research being carried out in quantum physics today, and how it relates to JK Rowling's universe of Harry Potter.
Unfortunately, while filming the talk the camera ran out of tape so the last few minutes are missing. I plan on giving an improved version of this talk again this spring before the next movie comes out. This time we will capture the whole thing.
This is my entry into the last Dance Your PhD contest. I did not win, but had a lot of fun putting this together. Here is the summary of the video: > Using the power of Quantum Physics, it is possible to make a ruler that can measure things far more accurately than normally possible. My PhD involved using photons, the smallest particles of light, in order to make such a "quantum ruler". I was able to get indvidual photons to cooperate with one another, leaving them entangled. These entangled photons have special properties that allow them to be used to accomplish things not ordinarily possible.
Jasper and I are thinking of working on some other dance videos to explain scientific concepts. If you have any physics ideas that you would like explained through dance, let us know in the comments.
