Nasa Scientists Make Magnetic Fields Visible...wow! Check out the video >

[Dover]

Magnetic fields are invisible, at least usually. But Scientists from NASA's Space Sciences Laboratory have made them visible as "animated photographs," using sound-controlled CGI and 3D compositing. It makes the fields, as explained by the scientists, dance in an absolutely gorgeous movie called Magnetic Movie. You don't want to miss this one, which is the coolest video that you'll see all week, guaranteed. You can't argue with a combo of beautiful effects and amazing science.



http://gizmodo.com/5012347/nasa-scientists-make-magnetic-fields-visible-beautiful

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Thanks that was mesmerizing

[TalkingDog]

7. Mesmerizing.... nice. Very clever. .... n/t

[Captain Angry]

2. THIS should be on TV.

Not "reality TV", not celebrities, this.

Gotta get the kids before our culture sucks the life out of them. My dad is a physicist, so I grew up in a house that liked its science. But so few kids seem to have access or interest to this sort of thing.

Thanks for the post.

[progressoid]

14. More important than Jessica Alba's baby?

:eyes:

Yeah, this is pretty cool!

[opihimoimoi]

3. Awesome

k & r

[puerco-bellies]

4. Wow, string theory comes to mind

I do not understand physics at all but I'm wondering if we are seeing an underlaying structure of "reality".

[girl gone mad]

5. No, we're just seing a computer graphic of the magnetic field.

Scientists understand magnetic fields pretty well. String theory would apply to matter and energy on a significantly smaller scale.

[nashville_brook]

9. while the poster above is correct -- i think she missed what you're saying.

you're saying that this might be a visual metaphor for string theory. like, string theory describes the effect of unseen forces that affect our world. metaphorically speaking, we can only see the "god-shaped holes" that higher physics seeks to describe (not the physics themselves). this little video/animation has made a part of that invisible world visible/accessible -- and that's powerful.

[YankeyMCC]

6. That is fracking cool nt

[windoe]

8. Wow anything that can make invisible frequencies

visible is very cool. I would love to 'see' how EMF looks also.

[Occulus]

10. Well, for this, it says they used "sound controlled CGI"

I wonder how they managed that? How did they get the actual magnetic fields to become visible in the software they used to render this video- or are those just illustrations of what magnetic fields would look like?

I'm guessing they used data from.... something, and then fed that into a script in their software of choice (3D Studio, Maya, Lightwave, etc). None of those fields visible in the movie look as though they were animated by hand.

Sorry, CG geek here- how they made the video is as interesting to me as what the video itself shows :D

[windoe]

11. I wonder if they have a sensor that picks up the magnetic field

in a way that pixelizes it , then they convert that signal into light? I am surrounded by geeks and nerds but am not a real one myself.:shrug:

[Bill McBlueState]

12. Here's the sun doing it

[YankeyMCC]

13. Oh sure

there goes nature showing up the tricks of us clever little apes, anything we do nature Just HAS to do first and more spectacularly! ;)