Pretty Physics

In my clear out the other day I found a book called 'Reading about Physics' which seems an odd title and it is really for children so hardly goes into any depth at all but since I didn't read about Physics as a child it doesn't seem too strange to do it now. Anyway it is quite interesting and in the 'watching things move' chapter Dr Harold Edgertons work was referenced in regard to stroboscopic photography.

This picture is my favourite! It is a bullet passing through an apple. Pretty cool huh?

It works like this. All the lights are turned off and the shutter of the camera is left open. Any light that is reflected will be shown on the film. Then a strobe light flashes at a certain frequency and this produces an image that shows the movement because only when the strobe light is on is the image built on. This is really good because it allows us to see things that are normally too fast.

For example this has been useful in biology by calculating the speeds of a hummingbirds wings and the flight patterns of the Luna moth.

 Also in sport it is interesting to look at technique and make improvements. This is a back dive and the larger the gaps between the feet shows a period of faster speed.

And of course in art, this picture titled the Coronet was included in the Museum of Modern arts first photography exhibition. It is a drop of milk hitting a red plate which is so simple and yet very effective. This also demonstrates another field studied by this technique, surface tension. It is also an opportunity to quote Dr Harold Edgerton, he said “There is no such thing as a ‘perfect’ result or a complete study of a phenomenon. For example, although I’ve tried for years to photograph a drop of milk splashing on a plate with all the coronet’s points spaced equally apart, I have never succeeded.”

There's this wonderful website all about Dr Harold Edgertons work, his life and what a wonderful person he was. He has been added to my list!