Taking A (Possibly Explosive) Page Out of Nature's Book


There's this Cold War story I heard. It's said that at the beginning of the Space Race, both the Americans and the Russians bumped into a bit of a nuisance. You can't use pens in Space. They depend on ink flowing downwards. So the Americans comissioned a research team to invent a pen that would work even in 0G, and soon enough they had built a clever system for pumping the ink and, after some effort, created a working prototype.

The Russians used a pencil.

What is the Colour of an Atom? - And the Galaxies Going Faster Than Light



A short film exploring the dual nature of light, spectroscopy, perception and the sad truth about astronomy. May or may not contain a pun. (It does.) 

What it certainly doesn't contain is an unexpected fact about rainbows, the truth about the empty floating bit of nothing between the wood and the fire itself and the story of the galaxies travelling faster than light. Because they are in this here blog post.