Just Why?

A "Kundt Tube" visualises acoustic standing waves with foam beads. This one is in the Osaka Science Museum. The long period modulation corresponds to wavelength of the sound. The short-period stripes are something rather different. Have a think about it. Link in the comments has the solution. 🧪

Humanity in 2025.

Rain is great for making tiny lenses. Lenses are also used for building quantum sensors like the one that we are developing as a part of the GNOME collaboration that is looking for dark matter. Until we actually see dark matter, this placeholder photo will have to do. arxiv.org/abs/2411.05319 🧪

In fairness to the trees, they're doing their best with what they've got. The characterisation of this roadside verge as a "stunning nature park filled with mature trees" is nevertheless hilarious. Pretty much on par for the hopeless redevelopment of Belconnen Markets.

A peak at about 4kHz, with a tail all the way to 20kHz.

Hearing loss on the south coast. 🎧 on max for the full effect.

Live footage of the world's media parsing the Trump staff and cabinet nominations.

Quantum optics tends to be confined to darkened labs, but sometimes the best optics is outside. Spider webs with built-in lenses and and abalone shells with photonic crystals [1].
[1] doi.org/10.1364/OPEX...