Quantum Levitation. Totally wild! Bring on the Flash Gordon future.

Here’s an explanation.

As long as we’re on the subject of Richard Feynman:

This is hypnotizing to watch and would be fun to build: Pendulum Waves.

A follow-up to the recent great Wired story, One Man’s Quest to Outrace Wind. Turns out there’s all kinds of Directly Downwind Faster than the Wind information out there, and I love these videos:

• Under the ruler faster than the ruler
• Under the ruler 2: the ground moves
• Under the ruler 3: tilting the ruler

Makes my brain hurt. I don’t understand why the big wheel turns in the direction that it turns. Dunce caps for me and poor hapless George, I guess.

Great story of this fellow who sets out to prove he can build a completely wind-powered vehicle that can travel directly downwind, faster than the wind: One Man’s Quest to Outrace Wind. Dad, read this one.

I suspect all this points to us not really being here, but scientists have recently observed quantum effects with the naked eye.

Totally insane: we might be living in a giant cosmic hologram. Staggering. Read the whole thing. And I thought the discovery of the quantum physics underlying photosynthesis was mind-blowing.

Richard Feynman on “why” (and magnetism, and why ice is slippery, and more). I could watch Feynman videos all day. (via kottke)

Richard Feynman explains, in his inimitable fashion, how trains stay on the tracks. (via kottke)

Beautiful, relaxing fun: Auditorium (via ze)

Y'gotta love any description of a physics puzzler that includes this:

Hamstrung by their lack of access to guar gum or competitive swimmers, Newton's and Huygens' work was mainly theoretical. Cussler's demonstration shows that Huygens was right, at least for human-sized projectiles.

Got there via a roundabout route, from this Jason Kottke page relaying a Cecil Adams answer to a plane-on-a-conveyor-belt problem.