10 May 2010

The "Symphony of Science" videos



I have a dozen more things bookmarked from this week, but it's getting late, so I'll conclude with this pair of remarkable videos.  [note there are 50 new posts today - two pages - so don't forget page two...]

The Symphony of Science is an ever-growing set of music videos designed to present the most basic concepts of science in a visually and audibly attractive fashion.  The content is a mashup of memorable phrases spoken by some the greatest scientists of our time, modified by the technique of auto-tuning, which some people find off-putting (but it tends to grow on you...)

The first video above presents Feynman, Hawking, Tyson, Dawkins and others in a 3-minute summation of what science is.  The second offers Sagan, Attenborough, and Goodall extolling the marvels of life and evolution:
  • "Every cell is a triumph of natural selection."
  • "Those are some of the things that molecules do given 4 billion years of evolution."
  • "The secrets of evolution are Time and Death."
There are three more videos at the Symphony of Science website, where you can learn more about the project and support it with a donation.

p.s. - I recommend viewing these full-screen.

6 comments:

  1. I adore autotuning. I wish everybody sounded like that when they talked!

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  2. "There's real poetry in the real world."

    Scientific understanding is just one (important) aspect of the total "world" and has a beauty of its own.

    Over aggrandizing science like this doesn't seem to me to be a sensible long term ploy since it diminishes other (important) aspects of the human experience, and has the unintentional side effect of leaving us more impoverished.

    Poetry is the poetry of the "real" world.

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  3. Those were WONDERFUL. David Attenborough should ALWAYS be autotuned.

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  4. 50 new posts? Why don't you put a web counter on the second page and see how many people actually make it through all those. Why not just publish them with a scheduler and have daily content?

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  5. Noumenon, I don't see what difference it makes either way. Whether they get through them doesn't matter, but I want people to know they are there. I see no advantage to scheduling them versus posting them on the same day.

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  6. I was interested when I saw science-related videos, but autotuning?! It's oh so much more exciting and pleasant! It would be a true shame if I had to listen to boring old scientists speak without sounding like T-Pain. I mean, science is so lifeless it really needs a gimmick to give it some spice.

    @Psurly: I don't know where to begin. By all means, continue with a sterile, black and white view of the world. You're absolutely right: poetry exists in isolation from all other subjects with no intermingling, the videos completely over aggrandized science and diminished other subjects, and your last sentence sums things up perfectly.

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