CAC - Noticias |
| Posted: 25 Mar 2012 05:26 PM PDT El Doctor Roberto Danovaro, de la Università Politecnica delle Marche, en Ancona (Italia), impartirá hoy martes, 27 de marzo, a partir de las 18:00 horas, en el Oceanogràfic de la Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, la conferencia ‘La vida en el océano cambiante: el desafío de la biodiversidad abisal’. En 2011 fue galardonado con la Medalla de Oro del Instituto Oceanográfico de Paris al mejor científico marino del mundo por su contribución al conocimiento de los ecosistemas de aguas profundas utilizando un planteamiento multidisciplinario. En la actualidad, hay una creciente evidencia de que la mayor parte de la biodiversidad desconocida se localiza en las grandes profundidades oceánicas. En la última década, se han realizado importantes progresos en el conocimiento de esta biodiversidad y su funcionamiento. Así, se ha constatado que, incluso, la biodiversidad en aguas profundas puede ser más alta que en áreas costeras. Hoy comenzamos a comprender que la cantidad y calidad de nutrientes puede ser incluso mayor en estas zonas profundas que en las plataformas continentales. En la charla, Roberto Danovaro, abordará las zonas calientes de las aguas profundas, la existencia de montes submarinos, corrientes hidrotermales o volcanes de lodo, en cuyo entorno abunda una gran diversidad de seres vivos. Se trata de la cuarta conferencia de la VIII edición de los Martes del Oceanogràfic, una actividad que este año tiene como temática principal la biodiversidad del planeta azul. |
| DID YOU KNOW THAT THE MUSEUM HAS ONE OF THE LONGEST FOUCAULT¿S PENDULUMS IN THE WORLD? Posted: 23 Mar 2012 04:23 AM PDT Did you know that the Science Museum, on its Calle Mayor, has one of the longest Foucault’s Pendulums in the world, at 34 metres in length and weighing 170 kilos? Come and see it, and while you’re here you’ll learn the amazing story it holds, as well as some of the fundamental concepts of physics. On the 26th March 1851, today’s date 161 years ago, the French physicist Leon Foucault (1819-1868) stunned the world with one of the most celebrated experiments in the history of science; an experiment that we have reproduced at the Museum, as a permanent homage to this famous scientist. With this experiment, Foucault brought an end to one of the most obvious “certainties” that our eyes show us when we look around us, something that just seemed like “common sense”: the fact that the Earth appears to be still, unmoving. With his famous pendulum, Foucault proved the opposite; that the Earth is indeed moving and it does so in a particular way: revolving around itself like a spinning top, always in the same direction and, when seen from the North Pole, anti-clockwise. This movement is known as its rotation, and it is largely responsible for the fact that we have days and we have nights. Long before, and in different ways, wise men of old such as Aristarchus of Samos, Copernicus and Galileo had reached the same conclusion that, in effect, the Earth is moving… but none of them were able to prove it, until 220 years later Leon Foucault hit upon this brilliant idea. The story behind this experiment is an extraordinary mix of passion, intellectual courage and expectation. Rarely has a society, in this case the French public, been so involved in a scientific experiment: it became a major event. First of all, Foucault conducted it on a small scale, using a little pendulum that he placed above a revolving platform (there is a very similar one right next to the large one in the Museum). He then gradually increased the size of both the cable and the ball that is suspended from it, until he reached a length of 67 metres for the cable and a weight of 28 kilos for the ball. At the Pantheon in Paris Only then did he invite the whole of Paris to his Pantheon (including Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte) to “see the Earth turn” with their own eyes! In actual fact, the ball was a cannon ball with a point that traced the oscillations onto a bed of sand. He shifted the pendulum from its position of stable equilibrium and it remained immobile with the help of a rope, to which he applied a flame until the rope broke and the pendulum began to swing. The show had begun. The sandy surface “recorded” how the swinging pendulum rotated slowly but continuously in a clockwise direction. The cause of this rotation is known as the “Coriolis effect'’ and it is the result of the Earth’s rotation, which causes mass to deviate to the right in the Northern hemisphere and to the left in the Southern hemisphere. Foucault’s Pendulum also represents the happy ending to a long history of intolerance suffered by iconic figures of philosophical thinking such as Galileo, Giordano Bruno (who defended the idea that the Earth rotated and ending up paying for it with his life). Can you imagine that, behind something so apparently simple, lies a story like the one we tell you at the Museum? This Pendulum is not the only one you will find there. You can have some “dangerous” fun with another very special pendulum in the ‘Terrifying vacuum’ sessions in Science on Stage: a “toothbreaker” pendulum that will really test your trust in science. |
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