Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with atomic

I imagine it's the music that all the people from "Are You Being Served" got down to in their off hours

rileyray3000 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:14:48 -0800

When I was in England I was in a bar where I heard a whole night's worth of music that sounded like "Atomic" by Blondie. Is this a genre of some kind? If so, what's it called and where do I get more? When I was in England I was in this bar in Soho where basically every song sounded like Atomic by Blondie. Basically like disco meets cruise ship music with some edge of euro/anglophile vibe throughout.

Maybe this was just one talented DJ but everyone seemed to act like this was a kind of music that's played in bad English clubs. Especially the ones by the seashore in Blackpool and such. But no one elaborated.

Frankly I probably didn't do the best questioning because I was really pretty hammered. I only remembered Atomic this week. And the night in question was three years ago now.

IS this a genre or subgenre? What's it called? Who are the major artists?

What is the name of this TV show where you zoom out to see the universe and then zoom down to the atomic level?

kosmonaut — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 14:57:14 -0800

What is the name of this science TV program where you are continually zooming out farther and farther from the Earth, and then zooming in to the microscopic level in someone's skin cell, while a man narrates? A few years ago I saw this program, maybe on PBS, where every ten seconds the speed of zoom would increase by an order of magnitude, and you see more and more of the universe, and then after zooming out a while, you would reverse direction, zooming in-- eventually into a cell and every ten seconds the speed would decrease by an order of magnitude as you get smaller and smaller into atoms and so on.

It was a really fascinating show and I wish I could figure out the name of it. Surely someone out there knows exactly what it is!

How are particles measured?

Citizen Premier — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:35:41 -0800

How are the attributes of atomic and subatomic particles measured? I guess you can't measure a particle without slamming something into it, right? How is this actually done?

Bonus: Is it this that forces us to use uncertainty in our current model? Does measuring a particle's location, say, change its momentum?

Sounds like the future!

ctmf — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 07:38:21 -0800

What's this musical style/genre called? The "atomic age" music that went along with "home of the future" type ads in the 50s/60s. Also I remember hearing cheesy music like what I'm thinking of on the Peoplemover at Disneyland when I was a kid. Something that might go along with ads like Plan59 has.

Sergio Mendez/Brasil '66 comes close, but it's not exactly it. Pointers to YT/audio samples appreciated.

Is there a minimum amount of power required to sustain a given bandwidth?

odinsdream — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:38:58 -0800

What, if any, is the relationship between bandwidth and power? Is there any fundamental physics relationship between the bandwidth of data transfer (i.e., number of data per time) and the minimum power (i.e., watts) required to sustain such a rate over a given amount of time?

Obviously there are macro-scale power requirements for something like the internet, but that's not what my question is about. I'm wondering about the theoretical limit, if there is one. It seems like there would have to be some minimum amount of power required to move a bit of information from one place to another. Are there papers or research I can read on this topic?

Atomic Bomb Filter: Help Me Find A Specific Atomic Test Picture

gnash — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:44:57 -0800

I am looking for a picture of a an exploded nuclear weapon test with soldiers standing silohuetted looking at the mushroom cloud, watching it with no special protective clothing. It was a great picture between 1945 and 1950 (I think). Not sure the date of the test, but obviously 1944 or later. Let me know if you have any ideas on how to find it.

Please help me find a specific atomic test picture.

gnash — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 22:05:38 -0800

Where can I find a picture that I saw a long time ago? It was a picture of an atomic bomb test with soldiers standing and watching the explosion silhouetted by the explosion.

Tours to the atomic blue glow?

Rash — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 10:13:02 -0800

Where can I go to see Cherenkov radiation -- not some simulation with a blue light in a deep-water bath, but the real thing -- as a tourist? Some museum, perhaps; or do nuclear power plants give tours?

Or would I really rather not, for health reasons? Is it unsafe? Could seeing it blind me?

atomic age poster art

NGnerd — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 16:26:53 -0800

Do you know of a good place a guy could buy an atomic age pro-nuclear propaganda poster around here? I'm trying to buy that special nuclear engineer in my life a super-cool 1950's era propaganda poster in support of nuclear power/bombs/rockets...whatever. She's got a fetish for modern art, so i'm trying to find something which mixes the svelt form of modern art with the horrifically naive idolization of the atom. However, i've come up dry in searching for atomic age art, nuclear posters, and the other general keywords that come to mind. Do you know of a specific organization or artist that might have this type of stuff? help me obi wan kenobi, you're my only hope.