Café Street
JUST RELEASED for Christmas 2020!
A man decides he’s not in a simulation, a vegan planet goes wrong, a transition that never was, a mysterious street café, a plague party, a bad-news addict, and a grandfather’s paradoxical book. A wry look back on 2020 mixed with science fiction, time travel, alienation, and death. Take a seat in Café Street. But don’t ask for the bill. Released a few hours ago. Visit Café Street for half an hour (it's a short book) for the price of a coffee.
Three of my books: TIME AERIALS, QUALIA, & GLOBAL REPLACE are free on Amazon for a few days. Please try one the links below:
My Books: fiction.red (preview and buy)
My Books on my graphics site: https://www.scientific.pictures/my-books
My Books (direct Amazon link): https://author.to/RussellKightley
Cicadas in a eucalypt in Deakin, ACT. Their screeching filled the air on our walk with Ollie this evening. Never so loud, never so many...
Coronavirus particles pirouetting on a black background. The virion (virus particle of SARS-Cov-2) has characteristic faceting and a corona of spikes. The spikes (shown in reddish-orange) are trimers (three identical proteins wound together) that allow the virus to attach to a cell surface. Once it enters the cell, its RNA is released and directs the production of new virus particles. This novel coronavirus is the cause of pandemic COVID-19. Licence it here.
Virus particles rotating on a black background. Rabies, Phages, Coronavirus, Adenovirus, and Influenza virus particles pirouette. Some, like rabies, flu, and coronavirus can be deadly, others, like bacteriophages and adenoviruses, can help us fight disease. But they all have a certain crystalline beauty. You can licence it here. Inspired by my VIRAL OCEAN design, this animation would make a great visual for exhibitions or the foyers of biotech companies.
ADENOVIRUS: Adenoviruses (AdV) are large naked viruses with characteristic fibres projecting from each vertex of their icosahedral capsids. Genome is double-stranded DNA. Adenoviruses tend to cause respiratory disease. Also used as vectors and for vaccines. This is a new version with more and brighter virions.
Adenoviruses (AdV) are large naked viruses with characteristic fibres projecting from each vertex of their icosahedral capsids. Genome is double-stranded DNA. Adenoviruses tend to cause respiratory disease. A chimpanzee-derived adenovirus is used as a vector in the new Oxford vaccine against the coronavirus, (ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine)
Supercavitating, rocket-powered torpedo (red) travelling through the sea in a bubble of its own creation. The flattened nose creates areas of very low pressure that result in bubbles (cavities). When these merge into a bubble that encloses the projectile, it is called supercavitation. Gas is expelled at the nose to help with the bubble creation. The cavity (containing water vapour) dramatically reduces the drag on the torpedo, so that it flies like a missile, many times faster than a conventional torpedo.
BUY THIS SUPERCAVITATING TORPEDO ANIMATION.Graphene is an allotrope of carbon consisting of flat sheets of hexagonally arranged carbon atoms. When stacked in layers, graphene makes graphite, of pencil fame. Graphene is a very good electrical conductor because electrons easily travel along the plane of the sheet. May be useful in batteries, according to recent news items.
BUY THIS GRAPHENE ANIMATION.
My shed, where I do all my writing and illustrating, looking magical in a Canberra sunset from a couple of nights ago. You might just glimpse a Hills Hoist in the foreground.Circular waves radiate out from two point-sources creating an interference pattern as they superimpose on each other. The waves sum together producing higher peaks and deeper toughs at some points, whilst cancelling each other out at other points. This is done in the same rose gold metal style as the two-slit experiment. You can licence it here.
Thomas Young's classic double-slit experiment. Created and rendered in Blender in pale rose gold. Composited in DaVinci Resolve. Plane waves hit a screen with two gaps. The gaps act as new wave sources, creating two sets of circular waves radiating outwards. These two new waves create an interference pattern as they superimpose on each other. The waves sum together producing higher peaks and deeper troughs at some points (constructive interference), whilst cancelling each other out at other points (destructive interference). Weird quantum stuff happens with light in the double-slit experiment... Licence for academic and commercial use.
Projectile (red) travelling through the water in a bubble of its own creation. The flattened nose creates areas of very low pressure that result in bubbles (cavities). When these merge into a bubble that encloses the projectile, it is called supercavitation. Larger objects can use supercavitation but they must augment the pressure drop with gas expelled at the nose (e.g. rocket-powered torpedos).
BUY THIS SUPERCAVITATION ANIMATION.The counterintuitive phenomenon is created when a projectile tears a tunnel through the water. This tunnel or super-cavity reduces drag on the sides of the projectile and it races along.
Fifteen new designs just proofed (printed in Germany) and up for sale on my shop. They include VIRAL OCEAN CHRISTMAS and GREEN ROOM and another QUALIA design.
Another in my series of wave animations. This is also in UHD (4K) and you can watch it at full size from this blog by clicking the video expand button.
Generalised animation of the increase in frequency observed in waves emitted from an approaching source (or conversely a decrease in frequency in waves emitted from a receding source). This Doppler Shift happens in sound waves (e.g. a siren of an approaching emergency vehicle or the change in pitch of a passing car engine) and in light waves (the red Doppler shift of a receding star or the blue Doppler shift of an approaching star, redshift and blueshift).
This animation uses a ball as the wave source. As the ball moves from left to right it emits wave-fronts that continue to radiate out from their position of origin. The ball moves on and creates a new point of origin for the next wavefront and so on. In this way, the waves bunch together at the front of the ball and spread out behind. Similar to a jet plane approaching the speed of sound and radiating sound waves. In the case of light waves then the higher frequency at the front yields a bluer light (blue shift), while behind the light source (e.g. a star) the light is stretched out, lengthening the frequency, creating a redshift. Licence this Doppler animation.
Generalised animation of a moving wave source travelling at the same speed as the waves. An example would be an aircraft travelling at the speed of sound (Mach 1). The waves expand outwards at the same speed as the object moves and concertina together at the front of the object. This assembling wall of compression that cannot escape is called the sound barrier in the case of aircraft. If the plane exceeds the speed of sound it breaks through the sound barrier and becomes supersonic creating a conical shock wave (Mach cone), where the wavefronts trail the object. Licence this animation.
Generalised animation of a moving wave source travelling at twice the speed as the waves. An example would be an aircraft travelling at Mach 2. The waves expand outwards but lag behind the object creating a conical shock wave (Mach cone), or a wake in the case of a ship creating waves in the ocean. Licence this animation.
You can watch this video at UHD (4K) filling your screen by clicking the expand button. Brand new animation of the increase in frequency observed in waves emitted from an approaching source (or conversely a decrease in frequency in waves emitted from a receding source). Happens in sound waves (e.g. a siren of an approaching emergency vehicle or the change in pitch of a passing car engine) and in light waves (the red Doppler shift of a receding star or the blue Doppler shift of an approaching star).
This animation uses a ball as the wave source. As the ball moves from left to right it emits wave-fronts that continue to radiate out from their position of origin. The ball moves on and creates a new point of origin for the next wavefront and so on. In this way, the waves bunch together at the front of the ball and spread out behind. Similar to a jet plane approaching the speed of sound and radiating sound waves. In the case of light waves then the higher frequency at the front yields a bluer light (blue shift), while behind the light source (e.g. a star) the light is stretched out, lengthening the frequency, creating a redshift. Available to licence.
I discovered Bob Shaw after picking up an ageing paperback of The Two Timers. I was looking for something to read late one night and I came across the yellowed book hidden in a bookcase. I'd always hoped to discover something magnificent, and this was it. It was like finding a hidden room in my own house. Two nights ago, I finished Night Walk, and before that, Dagger of the Mind. Plus a couple of short story collections. They're slightly dated but dated to that nostalgic time when I was growing up. It's like time travel. The descriptions are terse and original, with an underlying sly wit and wordplay. And the books are crammed with brilliant ideas. Who can ask for more? Tonight I'll travel back in time and into the future since I just bought The Palace of Eternity.
With all this excitement going on about water ice on the moon, and a new lunar age dawning, sit back and watch this re-vamped animation showing the phases of the moon:
Simplified, mechanical-style animation of the Moon orbiting the Earth showing the phases of the moon.
THE MOON varies in appearance throughout the lunar month as it orbits the Earth. This animation shows in a very simplified form how the sunlight (coming from lower right) shines on the Earth (bluish-white) and the Moon (grey). The viewpoint is fixed on the Earth and shows the moon rotating around the Earth. This rotation takes just over 27 days (a lunar month) but it takes nearly 30 days for the moon to go through all of its phases as viewed from Earth. At upper right shows the moon seen from Earth. The phases are the full moon, waning gibbous, half-moon, waning crescent, new moon, waxing crescent, half-moon, and waxing gibbous. Moonlight is simply sunlight reflected from the surface of the moon.
The scales are approximately correct for the relative sizes of the Earth and moon but the distance between the two has been greatly reduced. The plane of the moon orbit is, in reality, slightly tilted with respect to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the sun. The Earth and moon are locked in an orbit around each other and actually rotate about the pair's centre of gravity which is towards the surface of the Earth on the side facing the moon. This point is called the barycentre (Greek heavy centre). The moon continues to face the Earth as it orbits around, locked into synchrony by tidal (gravitational) forces. This is equivalent to the moon performing one revolution around its own axis for every complete revolution it makes around the Earth. The gravitational pull of the moon on the Earth distorts the oceans creating the tides.
I've just added a bunch of animations that illustrate the ever enigmatic double-slit experiment. The first is in 3D, the second is an orthographic 3D (effectively 2D)
4K UHD animation of the principle of Thomas Young's classic double-slit experiment. Waves hit a screen with two gaps. The gaps act as new wave sources, creating two sets of circular waves radiating outwards. These two new waves create an interference pattern as they superimpose on each other. The waves sum together producing higher peaks and deeper troughs at some points (constructive interference), whilst cancelling each other out at other points (destructive interference).
You can licence them from my Scientific.Pictures site.
