Synsthetes Speak Out

by ryan

On friday we had a really nice training about synesthesia and the different ways that senses can blend together in som people’s brains. W also discussed some artists that had this condition including Wassily Kandinsky.

This summer at the MOMA I saw some of his paintings anc copied this quote from the little sign.

“Color is a means of exerting direct influence on the soul. Color is a keyboard, the eye is the hammer, the soul is the piano with its many strings”

- Kandinsky

Also here’s part of a quote from Speak Memory by Vladimir Nabokov where he describes his connections between color and the alphabet…

“The long a of the English alphabet . . . has for me the tint of weathered wood, but a French a evokes polished ebony. This black group also includes hard g (vulcanized rubber) and r (a sooty rag being ripped). Oatmeal n, noodle-limp l, and the ivory-backed hand-mirror of o take care of the white. . . . Passing on to the blue group, there is steely x, thundercloud z and huckleberry h. Since a subtle interaction exists between sound and shape, I see q as browner than k, while s is not the light blue of c, but a curious mixture of azure and mother-of-pearl.”

Hope these are interesting to think about as we learn more about senses and the brain.

We Are All Connected

by ryan

Hope everyone had a great fortieth anniversary weekend. My highlights included an epic anti-gravity mirror battle against Marcus (the undisputed champion of that event), a child asking me what might happen if someone coughed on a brain, and having a really interesting conversation with some visitors about the motorcycle that (nearly) cut a block of ice in half. It was way fun being on the floor with the high school explainers on a busy weekend day. Oh and I also enjoyed taking over VJ duties in the webcast studio and broadcasting the owl song, the einstein rap, and the sun painting dance. If I would have known about it I would have played this video starring Bill Nye, Niel deGrasse Tyson, Richard Feynman, and Carl Sagan with their voices changed by autotune. Can we do this for one of Paul D.’s trainings? Maybe the sound box has this kind of power. Anyways, enjoy the song.

Pilots Hub

by Anne

Hey Explainers,

I just invited you (over email) to the Pilots Hub, an online international Explainer community. It’s like a facebook for Explainers. Whether you decide to join or not, it’s a cool place to check out- there are discussions on demos, photos, and videos from Explainers all over the world (mostly Europe right now).  If you want to, you can make your own profile and you can blog there.

http://pilots-hub.ning.com/

We’re not the only ones turning 40

by ryan

As the Exploratorium prepares to celebrate our 40th anniversary this weekend, I recently discovered (through a google headline made of big bird’s legs) that we are in elite company as Sesame Street also turns the big four-oh the same weekend. I know that the show was one of my first educational experiences and if you don’t remember how great it was, take a trip down memory lane with these classic clips.

Size and Scale

by ryan

Check out this Prezi-like graphic that Alicia sent in an e-mail that explores size and scale.

While nano days flashcards are pretty fundus, this is super cool.

Showdown

by ryan

Check our the article that was in the New York Times today about the differences between the Exploratorium and the Cal Academy of Sciences. It’s nice to hear some of our values articluated in a way that contrasts with more traditional museums and science institutions. Edward Roststein writes

“Oppenheimer created a palace of experiments, a conceptual playground in which it is impossible not to be engaged, amazed, frustrated or amused. You learn principles but are not told how you must use them. You are given a sense of interconnected phenomena, but are not directed to behave in a certain way. You are forced to think in the middle of play.”

Read the whole article here – Paths of Discovery