A great explanation of quantum mechanics, for the non-scientists among us!
Archive Page 2
A fairly new concept in photography, or maybe ‘reverse photography’, is achieved by what’s called an Image Fulgurator. Patented by a guy called Julius von Bismarck, it’s used to effectively project images onto other people’s pictures when they’re using a flash.
The device itself looks alot like a real camera, however it works in the opposite sense. Instead of light entering the front of the camera and exposing the film, light is beamed out of the camera, through a pre exposed film, and onto an object. The clever thing about this design, is that it includes a device mounted on the rear of the camera to detect flashes from other people’s cameras (Useful at landmarks where this happens alot!), and then time the flashing the image onto the subject during their exposure.
The result: to the naked eye, nothing is projected on the object in question, but on camera - a spooky image appears!
You can find a video of the camera in action by scrolling a few pages through this site.
One of the most recognised moves in contact juggling is ‘The Butterfly’. This move is also one of the fundamental building blocks for many other contact juggling maneuvers, so you should eventually be able to perform with no thought involved. The Butterfly was most memorably performed (for me at least) in the 1986 film Labyrinth, starring David Bowie. Although David did not himself perform the contact juggling (instead it was performed by Michael Moschen, one of the pioneers of contact juggling), the film portrays him performing the butterfly and several other moves involving both one clear acryclic ball and multiple balls.
The Butterfly combines both the Cradle and Palm and the Cradle to Cradle Transfer described in earlier posts.
Step 1:
Place the ball in the cradle position, and position your arm infront of your body at about chest height.
Step 2:
In a ‘windscreen wiper’ type motion, begin to toss the ball upwards and away from your body (away to the right if you’re starting on your right hand, and to the left if you started on your left). The aim will eventually have the ball almost seem as if it’s rolling up your hand (hence the ‘contact’ juggling), but in the initial stages of learning, it’s not necessary.
Step 3:
As the ball reaches the top of your hand, and your arm reaches the vertical position, the ball should pass directly over your middle finger.
Step 4:
Once the ball has passed the midway point, contine the arm motion and let the ball fall down the opposite side of your hand, you should be preparing to take any momentum out of the ball at this point, by moving your arm down slightly in sync with the ball.
Step 5:
At this point, the ball should roll into the palm of your hand, and come to rest in the ‘Palm’ position. It may take a bit of practice to get the ball to come to rest nicely after the maneuver, however eventually it will stick!
As stressed with most moves, you should be able to perform this with both hands, in one smooth motion (See why in the next steps!).
Step 6:
Once you’ve reached the palm position, you can then reverse the move and perform the above 5 steps backwards - from the Palm to the Cradle.
Step 7:
Perform the ‘Cradle to Cradle’ maneuver to pass the ball to your other hand.
Step 8:
Repeat the above - using the opposite hand!
The completed Butterfly should be very smooth and the transition between hands should almost be unnoticable. The first six steps can be performed independenty of the Butterfly with good effect, even progressing to passing the ball from one side of your hand to the other, without actually reaching the Cradle or Palm positions. This would mean the ball passes from ‘fingers to fingers’ - which gives you a little less control at first - but should be simple after a little practice.
Another basic maneuver which is useful in many more complicated contact juggling moves, is the cradle to cradle transfer.
Step 1:
Rest the ball in the cradle position in your starting hand (The move works from both left and right handed starting positions, so it makes no difference which you choose). Have your other hand positioned in front of the hand which is holding the ball. The ‘in front’ part is quite important, as although you can place it behind, you have alot more space away from your body than you do right next to it - and hiding the ball from the audience tends to ruin the whole illusion we’re after.
Have your hands spaced a small distance apart length wise (i.e across your body), to give the ball somewhere to roll down, and then prepare your recieving hand to stop the ball as it rolls onto it.
Step 2:
When you are ready, tip the hand the ball is currently resting on upwards, to roll the ball out of the cradle position. From here, you can use your arm as a guide to roll the ball onto your other hand.
Step 3:
As the ball rolls towards your recieving hand, arch your fingers slightly to stop it rolling off the end of your hand, and stop the ball in the cradle position.
Hey presto! - The Cradle to Cradle transfer!
This maneuver should be practiced for both hands, and is a basic element to constructing the Butterfly.
Wordle is a neat little Java applet which creates text art using either text you pasted into its editor, or tags from deli.icio.us.
To give a demonstration, here’s this website run through Wordle!!
