Historic Black And White Pictures Restored In Color

wh……….

At the very centre of the image above is something incredible - a single, positively-charged strontium atom, suspended in motion by electric fields.

Not only is this an incredibly rare sight, it’s also difficult to wrap your head around the fact that this tiny point of blue light is a building block of matter.

The image was captured by physicist David Nadlinger from the University of Oxford, and it’s been awarded the overall prize in the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council photo competition.

To give you a little perspective on the size of this set-up, the atom is being held in place by electric fields emanating from those two metal needles on either side of it.

The distance between them is about 2 millimetres (0.08 inch).

The atom is being illuminated by a blue-violet laser. The energy from the laser causes the atom to emit photons which Nadlinger could capture on camera using a long exposure.

The whole thing is housed inside an ultra-high vacuum chamber and dramatically cooled to keep the atom still. Nadlinger took this photo through the window of the vacuum chamber.

To learn more, click here.

there’s a blood feud going on at The Atlantic over which planet is best

Here’s the thing about the air nomads.

I introduced a friend to ATLA a few nights ago, and they had only known two things about the entire show: the cabbage meme, and that Aang apparently wants to ride every large and dangerous animal he can possibly find. We got through the first five or so episodes, and my friend noted that Aang is exactly what a 12-year-old would be like if given godlike powers, and that this is literally just what he could do with airbending. He can’t even wield any of the other elements, and he’s one of the most powerful people on the planet, because he’s an airbender.

And that got me thinking.

This snippet from Bitter Work is one of the few pieces of concrete information we get about the airbenders, at least in ATLA. Iroh is explaining to Zuko how all four of the elements connect to the world and to each other.

Fire is the element of power, of desire and will, of ambition and the ability to see it through. Power is crucial to the world; without it, there’s no drive, no momentum, no push. But fire can easily grow out of control and become dangerous; it can become unpredictable, unless it is nurtured and watched and structured.

Earth is the element of substance, persistence, and enduring. Earth is strong, consistent, and blunt. It can construct things with a sense of permanence; a house, a town, a walled city. But earth is also stubborn; it’s liable to get stuck, dig in, and stay put even when it’s best to move on.

Water is the element of change, of adaptation, of movement. Water is incredibly powerful both as a liquid and a solid; it will flow and redirect. But it also will change, even when you don’t want it to; ice will melt, liquid will evaporate. A life dedicated to change necessarily involves constant movement, never putting down roots, never letting yourself become too comfortable.

We see only a few flashbacks to Aang’s life in the temples, and we get a sense of who he was and what kind of upbringing he had.

This is a preteen with the power to fucking fly. He’s got no fear of falling, and a much reduced fear of death. There’s a reason why the sages avoid telling the new avatar their status until they turn sixteen; could you imagine a firebender, at twelve years old, learning that they were going to be the most powerful person in the whole world? Depending on that child, that could go so badly.

But the thing about Aang, and the thing about the Air Nomads, is that they were part of the world too. They contributed to the balance, and then they were all but wiped out by Sozin. What was lost, there? Was it freedom? Yes, but I think there’s something else too, and it’s just yet another piece of the utter brilliance of the worldbuilding of ATLA.

To recap: we have power to push us forward; we have stability to keep us strong; we have change to keep us moving.

And then we have this guy.

The air nomads brought fun to the world. They brought a very literal sense of lightheartedness.

Sozin saw this as a weakness. I think a lot of the world did, in ATLA. Why do the Air Nomads bother, right? They’re just up there in their temples, playing games, baking pies in order to throw them as a gag. As Iroh said above, they had pretty great senses of humour, and they didn’t take themselves too seriously.

But that’s a huge part of having a world of balance and peace.

It’s not just about power, or might, or the ability to adapt. You can have all of those, but you also need fun. You need the ability to be vulnerable, to have no ambitions beyond just having a good day. You need to be able to embrace silliness, to nurture play, to have that space where a very specific kind of emotional growth can occur. Fun makes a hard life a little easier. Fun makes your own mortality a little less frightening to grasp. Fun is the spaces in between, that can’t be measured by money or military might. Fun is what nurtures imagination, allows you to see a situation in a whole new light, to find new solutions to problems previously considered impossible.

Fun is what makes a stranger into a friend, rather than an enemy.

Fun helps you see past your differences.

Fun is what fuels curiosity and openmindedness.

Fun is the first thing to die in a war.

ok

this is probably the best thing i have ever made

"Growing Around Grief"

Lois Tonkin, 1996

good evening! what the fuck

A few friends and I are thinking of making an animated something based on His Dark Materials. We’re taking our time on this one to get it right. 

Here, the people I’ll be working with. From top to bottom:  @shliten, @matthieudaures, @leareymauzaize , @kojad and @cy-lindric with their daemons !