Wednesday, November 14, 2012

1,000,000,000,000 Frames/Second Photography - Ramesh Raskar on TED

...the future of Photography?

 

Friday, August 17, 2012

The Unreachable Secret Tomb of China's 1st Emperor

Terracotta warrior from Qin Shi Huang's tomb
An army of clay warriors guards the tomb of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who died in 210 BC. The tomb is still under excavation near Xi'an, China.
CREDIT: Clara Moskowitz/LiveScience 

Buried deep under a hill in central China, surrounded by an underground moat of poisonous mercury, lies an entombed emperor who's been undisturbed for more than two millennia.

The tomb holds the secrets of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, who died on Sept. 10, 210 B.C., after conquering six warring states to create the first unified nation of China.
The answers to a number of historical mysteries may lie buried inside that tomb, but whether modern people will ever see inside this mausoleum depends not just on the Chinese government, but on science.
 
"The big hill, where the emperor is buried — nobody's been in there," said archaeologist Kristin Romey, curatorial consultant for the Terracotta Warrior exhibition at New York City’s Discovery Times Square. "Partly it's out of respect for the elders, but they also realize that nobody in the world right now has the technology to properly go in and excavate it.".

The warring states:

Qin Shi Huang (pronounced "chin shuh hwang") was born in 259 B.C., first son to the king of Qin, one of six independent kingdoms inside modern China. These kingdoms had been warring for more than 200 years, but through a combination of military strength, strategy and natural disasters, Qin Shi Huang conquered them all, proclaiming himself not just a king, but also an emperor — the first of China.
Scholars still debate the details of how this occurred, and what unique tactics allowed the Qin emperor to achieve what no one had managed before.
When he died, Qin Shi Huang was buried in the most opulent tomb complex ever constructed in China, a sprawling, city-size collection of underground caverns containing everything the emperor would need for the afterlife. The ancient Chinese, along with many cultures including ancient Egyptians, believed that items and even people buried with a person could be taken with him to the afterlife.
But instead of burying his armies, concubines, administrators and servants with him, the Qin emperor came up with an alternative: clay reproductions.

Shocking discovery:

In 1974, a group of farmers digging wells near Xi'an in China, stumbled upon one of the most shocking archaeological discoveries of all time. The life-size terracotta solider they dug out of the ground turned out to be just one of an army of thousands, each utterly unique, with individual clothing, hair and facial features.
For almost four decades, archaeologists have been excavating the site. So far, they've uncovered about 2,000 clay soldiers, but experts estimate there are more than 8,000 in total.
"They're going to be digging there for centuries," Romey predicted.
Still, scientists have yet to touch the central tomb, which holds a palace containing the body of Qin Shi Huang.
"It's really smart what the Chinese government is doing," said Romey. "When we went into [Egyptian King] Tut's tomb, think about all the information we lost just based on the excavation techniques of the 1930s. There's so much additional that we could have learned, but the techniques back then weren’t what we have now.". "Even though we may think we have great archaeological excavation techniques right now," she said, "who knows, a century down the road if we open this tomb, what they're going to say?"

Terracotta warrior from Qin Shi Huang's tomb
Even though they number in the thousands, each terracotta soldier has painstakingly detailed armor, facial features, hair and clothing.
CREDIT: Clara Moskowitz/LiveScience







To open the tomb?

The decision whether to explore the tomb anytime soon, or ever, is up to the government of China. That decision will likely be influenced by the pace of technological progress.
"In archaeological conservation, every year you have major new developments," Romey said. "When we began excavating [the soldiers] in the '70s, the minute they were exposed to air and sunlight, the pigment just flaked off. Now they’ve figured out a new technique where they can actually preserve the paint as they excavate."
Perhaps, if science advances enough, that excavation wouldn't cause serious damage to the burial site, and the tomb will finally be opened.
"I wouldn’t be surprised if you had some sort of robotic visual survey going in there at some point," Romey said.
And despite their desire to protect the treasures of antiquity, archaeologists are itching with curiosity to find out what's inside Qin Shi Huang's central tomb.

Rivers of mercury:

Ancient writings say the emperor created an entire underground kingdom and palace, complete with a ceiling mimicking the night sky, set with pearls as stars. Pits full of terracotta concubines have never been discovered, though experts predict they exist somewhere in the complex.
And Qin Shi Huang's tomb is also thought to be encircled with rivers of liquid mercury, which the ancient Chinese believed could bestow immortality.
"It's kind of ironic" Romey said. "This is probably how he died, by ingesting mercury. He was taking all these mercury pills because he wanted to live forever and it killed him by the age of 39."
That moat of mercury also presents another reason why archaeologists are loath to explore the tomb just yet — doing so would likely be very dangerous, according to soil samples around the tomb, which indicate extremely high levels of mercury contamination.
In the end, scientists and historians must always weigh their desire to know more with the damage such inquiry would cause.
"Archaeology, ultimately, is a destructive science" Romey said. "You have to destroy stuff in order to learn about it."


Source:  http://www.livescience.com/22454-ancient-chinese-tomb-terracotta-warriors.html

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Stephen Hawking - Time Machine



Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Night of the Living Dead (1968) - The First Zombie Film

"Night of the Living Dead" is a 1968 American independent horror film and also a cult film. It was directed by George A. Romero, starring Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea and Karl Hardman and it premiered on October 1, 1968. The budget for this film was only US$114,000.

It is known today as the first zombie film ever made, and a cult film for all zombie fans or at least it should be.





http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Archaeologists found Mona Lisa model's remains

mona

Archeologists are uncovering the remains of what they believe is the model behind Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa". Source: AdelaideNow
IT'S the face that launched a thousand imitations. Now, archaeologists are convinced they've found the body of the real Mona Lisa.
Buried in a crypt beneath a convent in Florence, Italy, archaeologists believe they have uncovered the skeleton belonging to the model who posed for Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece in 1504.
The wife of a rich silk merchant, Lisa Gheradini, is generally accepted by historians to be the woman with the mysterious smile.
Lisa Gheradini, whose married name was Giocondo, became a nun after her husband's death. She was buried in the grounds of the Convent of Saint Ursula where she died in 1542, aged 63.


Mona Lisa

The burial site of Lisa Gherardini, wife of the wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, the model who inspired Leonardo da Vinci's painting "The Mona Lisa". Picture: AFP / CLAUDIO GIOVANNINI Source: AFP
Archaeologists had to dig through thick concrete laid as part of an effort to turn the convent into barracks for soldiers.
But they quickly unearthed a female-sized human skull, along with fragments of vertebrae and ribs.
It was right where ancient maps and documents had led them to believe Lisa's body had been placed: a crypt reached via a gate and staircase.

Mona Lisa

Archaeologists work on the excavation of a grave inside the medieval Convent of Saint Ursula in Florence. Picture: AFP / CLAUDIO GIOVANNINI Source: AFP
The dig was suspended after the archaeologists ran out of funds, but work began again last month.
They have since unearthed a large part of a human skeleton.
However, archeologist Silvano Vinceti, who is in charge of the dig, said it was not certain if the bones belonged to the same individual.


Mona Lisa

An archaeologist works on the excavation of a grave inside the medieval Convent of Saint Ursula in Florence. Picture: AFP / CLAUDIO GIOVANNINI Source: AFP
DNA will be extracted from the bones and compared with the remains of Lisa's children, who were buried nearby.
Once her identity is verified, archeologists will use reconstruction techniques on the skull to see how it compares to the face on da Vinci's idyllic painting.
Professor Vincenti claimed last year that hidden initials could be found in the eyes of the Mona Lisa when examined under a high-powered microscope.


Mona Lisa

A human skeleton is seen at the excavation of a grave inside the medieval Convent of Saint Ursula in Florence. Archaeologists are searching the burial site for Lisa Gherardini, wife of the wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo, the model who inspired Leonardo da Vinci's painting "The Mona Lisa". AFP / CLAUDIO GIOVANNINI Source: AFP

Source: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/archeologists-uncover-mona-lisa-models-remains/story-fnddckzi-1226428689373

Monday, February 20, 2012

Giordano Bruno. A Mind Ahead of its Time

Giordano Bruno (1548 – February 17, 1600), born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds populated by other intelligent beings. He was burned at the stake by civil authorities in 1600 after the Roman Inquisition found him guilty of heresy for his pantheism and turned him over to the state, which at that time considered heresy illegal. After his death he gained considerable fame, particularly among 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who, focusing on his astronomical beliefs, regarded him as a martyr for free thought and modern scientific ideas.

Some assessments suggest that Bruno's ideas about the universe played a smaller role in his trial than his pantheist beliefs, which differed from the interpretations and scope of God held by the Catholic Church. In addition to his cosmological writings, Bruno also wrote extensively on the art of memory, a loosely organized group of mnemonic techniques and principles. The pioneering work of Frances Yates, especially influential in anglophone scholarship, argues that Bruno was deeply influenced by the astronomical facts of the universe inherited from Arab astrology, Neoplatonism and Renaissance Hermeticism. Other recent studies of Bruno have focused on his qualitative approach to mathematics and his application of the spatial paradigms of geometry to language.