MIT – Quicker than a Wink
An evening pause: This 1940 short film won an Academy Award for best one-reel short. It provides a nice and witty demonstration of the first technology that allowed very high speed slow motion movies to be made.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
An evening pause: This 1940 short film won an Academy Award for best one-reel short. It provides a nice and witty demonstration of the first technology that allowed very high speed slow motion movies to be made.
Hat tip Wayne DeVette.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Always a treat to see work from the amazing Prof. Harold “Doc” Edgerton!
I was lucky enough to take a course at Strobe Lab during my time at MIT. Although officially retired, Doc was at the lab almost every day. He always had time for advice or a story. An incredible scientist and teacher.
That was great!
Milk $0.13/qt = $3.01 in 2026. Unless you live in an offshore State, you almost certainly pay much less. But, that was delivered.
Why so much milk?
Narration is priceless.
These films demonstrate the necessity for Human interaction with the machine. As a generation of drivers have found, touchscreen-everything is movie-cool: not so great on the daily. Turns out ot be about as practical as carrying swords on your back. A graduated thumbwheel for the strobe gives immediate tactile feedback to what the eye is seeing, rather than wait for some electronic intermediary to register the action (or not. ‘Sorry, Dave . . .’).
at 2:30 – “…so silent they no longer disturb sleeping employees” A bit of humor seamlessly inserted into the vorticeal airflow!
3:26 – “…clear as a California morning. Well, some California mornings.” Sarcasm richly sprinkled in. But then MIT and Cal Tech always have been competitive, and MIT’s 2nd motto is “Always show them up”!
Edgerton started his strobe work in the early 1930s. I used a strobe in the early 1970s to improve my tennis serve by speeding up my swing speed and seeing it improved in a photo.
Is it possible to use the same technique to “slow down” beams of light? As an otherwise ignorant layman, I cannot imagine this has not been attempted. Is it even possible to obtain the same “in sight” on light itself?
Dave—
here you go–
“1 trillion frames pe-second; Imaging Photons”
MIT (2011)
https://youtu.be/EtsXgODHMWk
2:46
“We use a regular pulse light-source and a camera that is actually 500 different sensors, triggered at 1 trillionth of a second delay.”
(Particle or Wave? discuss…..)
—————————
The film short on Edgerton stops in 1940, but he was vital to WW2. He developed a strobe system carried on modified aircraft that produced sharp aerial surveillance pictures from 1 mile in height, at night. He was also instrumental in developing techniques to examine the implosion wave required for the a-bomb and photographing the Trinity test.
Here is a Veratasium on the same set up that Wayne showed. It has a bit more explanation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-4pbFcERnk
MIT Science Reporter
“How Fast is Fast?”
Edgerton Foundation (1994)
https://youtu.be/O-3zrwRuPvg
20:25
Retrospective on Professor Edgerton (April 6, 1903 – January 4, 1990).
” . . . produced sharp aerial surveillance pictures from 1 mile in height, at night.”
Let us consider the 20 year-old pilot and like-aged observer flying alone and unarmed over heavily defended territory at 5000 feet. Pucker-factor is high, this mission. Speed is Life; and Mosquito is salvation.
Blair Ivey: “Speed is Life; and Mosquito is salvation.” They were not Mosquitos. The most famous mission used a Douglas A-20 bomber. This was 5 June 1944, the night before D-Day, where photos of critical road intersections indicated the Germans were not aware of the upcoming invasion. The plane was sometimes below 1,000 feet.
Doc wrote in his notebook:
“The A-20 (No 449) went on its first mission on Monday night June 5 arriving at the target on June 6 around 130 am. The target was two road intersections south of Caen. Due to clouds the pictures were taken at 800 ft – 2000 ft. The photos were very good but there was no overlap. Some flack [sic] from ground machine guns was encountered at a town named Coustances. Villedieu-les-Poêles was photographed. I stayed up until 5 am to see the negatives out of the dryer.”
https://invention.si.edu/invention-stories/seeing-dark-aerial-reconnaissance-wwii
Apparently, Doc was onboard that bomber, operating his equipment…
Steve Golson–
Great stuff!
Edgerton was also a founding partner of defense contractor “EG&G,” (Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc.) Notable products include the Krytron, the Rapatronic Camera, and various image-intensifier’s using CCD technology.
“The Life and Work of Professor Edgerton”
MIT Edgerton Center (2008)
Presented by Prof. J. Kim Vandiver
https://youtu.be/dkg19hnGLVQ
(59:17)
Blair–
You might like this:
Audio from the Past
“Avro Lancaster Crew Radio Chatter”
3 separate bombing raids
https://youtu.be/MF5_hvE4WEA
(9:44)
Colonel Roy M. Stanley II, USAF (RET) wrote: “I consider the Mosquito the best photo-reconnaissance aircraft of the war”.[