Traveling: Israel and Istanbul

I just returned from the 30th Jerusalem Winter School in Theoretical Physics. It was an intensive school focusing on modern cosmology and galaxy formation with lectures from experts in the field. You can watch the lectures on online here and you can find the slides of the lectures here. In addition to just attending lectures in a boring conference room I of course got out and saw some sights in Israel like the old city of Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, and Masada. Since I was in the region I also struck out to Istanbul, Turkey. Istanbul is a place I have always wanted to see for the history, culture, and people. It was a long and winding trip and to sum it all up here are a few pictures. 

 The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. 

Candles being lit in a church.

The ubiquitous surveillance camera and the old city at sunset.

View of a gate with of Jerusalem city walls in background.

Views of Jerusalem city walls through a gate.

An old column outside Mary's tomb.

The Hagia Sofia in Istanbul.  Galata tower at night.

The Nusretiye Mosque near the Istanbul Modern Art Museum.

A crescent moon over what I think is the Nuruosmaniye Mosque. The crescent moon is one the symbols of Turkey.

Alexander the Great as depicted on Alexander's Sarcophagus which is actually not his Sarcophagus but probably that of some governor of Sidon.

The Basilica Cistern is a 6th century Byzantine construction near the Hagia Sofia that held water for the city. It is quite eerie.

It is a long tradition to respect and live with animals in Istanbul. Beautiful cats and dogs wander throughout Istanbul. They are wild and may go where they want, but they are offered food and shelter so often stay near areas that are kind to them. It is kind of wonderful.

A shot from inside the Hagia Sofia taken during sunset.

A picture of yours truly inside the Hagia Sofia.

On Replications

Repetition is ubiquitous and has many different meanings in education, art, literature, science, and life Ideas replicate and mutate; cultural memes spread through culture seamlessly. Manufactured goods are produced as nearly identical as possible. Deviations from the mold are discarded and parts are interchangeable. Digital data is almost limitlessly replicable. Any data or idea committed to the digital world is perfectly copied (sparing the occurrence of a flipped bit) until it is intentionally modified. This characteristic of digital ideas presents a unique challenge for creators of content, distributors, and bored people on the internet. And of course animals and plants on Earth have the ability to self replicate themselves with minor variations. What do we make of all of this?

I am keen on the intersection of art and science on this matter. I like making collages and have highlighted repeated images before with 35 images of space helmet reflections and 100 images of macchiatos. Through repetition and distortion images may be amplified or diminished. It depends on perspective. Generally in artistic endeavors, as in life, the slight variations of a repeated theme are aesthetically pleasing. On the other hand technical work such as engineering, data analysis, or manufacturing requires precise replication. I work in radio astronomy where each radio telescope in the array is nearly identical and the need for precision trumps all other considerations. I find that randomness is never particularly interesting, but neither is absolute order. Somewhere in between these extremes we have something really beautiful.

Double Rainbow

The Ring Nebula (M57) versus the Morning Glory geyser pool at Yellowstone National Park. How is that they look so similar? I can answer that.

• M57 was once a star like the Sun which exhausted its hydrogen fuel and puffed up into a red giant giving off winds; it is a planetary nebula. At the center an aging super hot star emits ultraviolet radiation exciting the nearby gas the most thus giving off the blue color. Towards the edge the gas is cooler and appears red. This is a real color image. View M57 with even a pair of large binoculars (3 inch) and it will look like a smoky ring, moving up to a larger telescope the colors and structure will become visible.
• The Morning Glory pool is a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park. It is an upwelling of water geothermally heated by the Earth's tectonic activity. The water at the center is blue because of the intrinsic color of water (it preferentially absorbs red light) and the depth at the center of the pool. At the edges of the pool bacteria in microbial mats grow (bacteria are absent in the center because of the lack of light and high temperatures). The color of the bacteria is determined by the amount of pigments in them particularly chlorophyll and carotenoids. This is a real color image (also see this even more vibrant picture of the Morning Glory Pool). Perhaps, life started in a hot bubbly pool like this on the primordial Earth. 

Wow, these phenomena are self similar in their optical, geometric, and thermal properties. I will leave it as an exercise to the reader as to answer why nature is so amazing.

100 Images of Macchiatos

I drink a lot of macchiatos. If you don't know, a macchiato is an espresso coffee 'marked' with steamed milk.

You can see a larger version  here. I work in coffee shops almost daily here in Seattle, and over the last year or so I took these pictures of each drink I had. Each coffee shop and barista has a different way of making the drink and I didn't take each picture in any particular way to standardize them, but I really like the result: a collage of consumption of coffee: 100 images of macchiatos. A little while ago I posted Thirty Five Images of Space Helmet Reflections which was a similar image, alas, while I would like to of been wearing one of those space helmets the reality is that I spend my time merely dreaming of the stars in coffee shops.

Missing Pages

This film mesmerizes me. Missing Pages is a short film by Jerome Oliver about a genius professor and the time machine he creates which leads him into internal battles, a war for humanities humanness, and a reckoning with reality. It is set in a sort of post-singularity minimalist landscape. The entire film is composed of manipulated digital photography with a technique called fotomation. If you enjoy film for films sake then one would argue solely on their use of an experimental approach that it should be watched, but I just really liked the film all around. The music adds a depth which keeps bringing me back.

Above is just the first third of the film. The above clip does not do justice to the film's quality. The clip was removed because it violated terms of service. Anyways, you can get all three parts of the film in high definition full screen for free from itunes here.

Light Reign

I found out you can go inside the color changing object I saw all those nights as I waited for the bus. It is called the James Turrell Skyspace, Light Reign.

Lights

The Henry Art Gallery has this thing. It changes colors. I take pictures of it as I am waiting for the bus.