Philosophy
No comment...
Every so often, particle physics communicators from labs around the world gather to swap strategies for getting people interested in science. At the group’s April meeting in Japan, the big hit was toilet paper.
Since 2004, more than 40,000 rolls of toilet paper with flushable facts about the life cycles of stars have found their way into Japanese society. References to Astronomical Toilet Paper litter blogs, and Web photos show the toilet paper visiting historical sites, much like the gnome in Travelocity commercials.
“People nowadays are too busy to think about the universe,” says Naohiro Takanashi, a research fellow at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. “We hope busy people use their time in the closed rest room to think about it.”
Tsuyuki Shikou, a company known for manufacturing toilet paper adorned with animals, flowers and vegetables, printed this version for the TENPLA Project, which is dedicated to popularizing astronomy. It follows in a whimsical Japanese tradition of inscribing toilet paper with comic strips, crossword puzzles, novels, and pop culture icons.
“We hope people learn that stars have a life. They are born from a molecular cloud, they become adult and finally they die; it’s similar to our lives,” Takanashi says. “We want people to see the similarity and feel connected to the stars and have an interest in astronomy.”
You can even do a bit of astronomy with the cardboard tube at the center of the roll: Take it outside, look at the sky through the cardboard tube, count the stars in the circle and use a formula to calculate the brightness of the night sky.
That is, if you can bring yourself to use all the paper.
Fusae Miyazoe, spokeswoman for the Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe at the University of Tokyo, says many of her colleagues tell her it’s a waste to read the roll only once, “so they just leave it on the shelf in the bathroom.”
If the idea catches on, maybe we’ll see toilet paper showing, step by step, how particles zip through a detector. Hmm. What will particle physicists do with the cardboard tube?
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Philosophy
Japanese toilet tissue and astronomy
No comment...
"Wiping with the stars"
by
Tia Jones
December 2009
Symmetry
by
Tia Jones
December 2009
Symmetry
Every so often, particle physics communicators from labs around the world gather to swap strategies for getting people interested in science. At the group’s April meeting in Japan, the big hit was toilet paper.
Since 2004, more than 40,000 rolls of toilet paper with flushable facts about the life cycles of stars have found their way into Japanese society. References to Astronomical Toilet Paper litter blogs, and Web photos show the toilet paper visiting historical sites, much like the gnome in Travelocity commercials.
“People nowadays are too busy to think about the universe,” says Naohiro Takanashi, a research fellow at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. “We hope busy people use their time in the closed rest room to think about it.”
Tsuyuki Shikou, a company known for manufacturing toilet paper adorned with animals, flowers and vegetables, printed this version for the TENPLA Project, which is dedicated to popularizing astronomy. It follows in a whimsical Japanese tradition of inscribing toilet paper with comic strips, crossword puzzles, novels, and pop culture icons.
“We hope people learn that stars have a life. They are born from a molecular cloud, they become adult and finally they die; it’s similar to our lives,” Takanashi says. “We want people to see the similarity and feel connected to the stars and have an interest in astronomy.”
You can even do a bit of astronomy with the cardboard tube at the center of the roll: Take it outside, look at the sky through the cardboard tube, count the stars in the circle and use a formula to calculate the brightness of the night sky.
That is, if you can bring yourself to use all the paper.
Fusae Miyazoe, spokeswoman for the Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe at the University of Tokyo, says many of her colleagues tell her it’s a waste to read the roll only once, “so they just leave it on the shelf in the bathroom.”
If the idea catches on, maybe we’ll see toilet paper showing, step by step, how particles zip through a detector. Hmm. What will particle physicists do with the cardboard tube?
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"Should we send artists into space?" by Richard Hollingham January 15th, 2014 BBC NEWS Chris Hadfield is many things: a highly trained engineer, pilot and experienced astronaut. But, as we all know, it was his ability to convey the wonders of life in...
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George Herbig January 2nd, 1920 to October 12th, 2013 "Astronomer George Herbig dies at age 93" Herbig was widely acclaimed for his pioneering studies of star formation and the properties and evolution of young stars. October 14th, 2013 University of...
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I suppose that this news will make one feel better...three times the chance of alien encounter[s]. Regardless, it is humbling. "How Many Stars? Three Times as Many as We Thought, Report Says" by Kenneth Chang December 1st, 2010 The New York Times It...
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In the words of Sarah Palin..."You bethcha"...she can hear the sounds of Uranus from her front porch. Abstract: What do Brian May (the Queen’s lead guitarist), William Herschel and the Jupiter Symphony have in common? And a white dwarf, a piano and...
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See how simple things malfunction...the ISS toilet is partially broken. Fortunately they aren't far away and the shuttle Discovery is scheduled to be launched this Saturday [May 31st, 2008] with an on-board union plumber from Acme Plumbing with necessary...