Maze.

The maze is constructed of more than 16,000 English yews and is the longest hedge maze in the world, covering 1.48 acres, and 1.69 miles of pathway.

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Eddies.

The phenomenon that is shown in the image of Guadalupe Island at the top of this page (acquired on August 20, 1999) features a ubiquitous occurrence in the motion of fluids—a vortex street, which is a linear chain of spiral eddies called von Karman vortices. Von Karman vortices are named after Theodore von Karman, who first described the phenomenon in the atmosphere. Dr. von Karman was a co-founder of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

von Karman vortices form nearly everywhere that fluid flow is disturbed by an object. In the cloud images shown on this page, the "object" that is disturbing the fluid flow is an island or group of islands. As a prevailing wind encounters the island, the disturbance in the flow propagates downstream of the island in the form of a double row of vortices which alternate their direction of rotation. The animation below shows how a von Karman vortex street develops behind a cylinder moving through a fluid.

Both the ocean and atmosphere are fluids, in constant motion. On our limited “human”-scale, we are aware of this motion when we feel the wind blow,  or when we encounter a current running along the beach while swimming. Yet our eyes alone can rarely observe the larger scale of fluid motion in the  ocean and atmosphere.

Technical description: As a fluid particle flows toward the leading edge of a  cylinder, the pressure on the particle rises from the free stream pressure  to the stagnation pressure. The high fluid pressure near the leading edge   impels flow about the cylinder as boundary layers develop about both sides. The high pressure is not sufficient to force the flow about the back of the  cylinder at high Reynolds numbers. Near the widest section of the cylinder,  the boundary layers separate from each side of the cylinder surface and form  two shear layers that trail aft in the flow and bound the wake. Since the  innermost portion of the shear layers, which is in contact with the cylinder,  moves much more slowly than the outermost portion of the shear layers, which  is in contact with the free flow, the shear layers roll into the near wake,  where they fold on each other and coalesce into discrete swirling vortices.  A regular pattern of vortices, called a vortex street, trails aft in the wake.

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Appear.

If you’re walking through Boston during a downpour, make sure to keep your eyes on the pavement: you might just see a poem appear before your eyes. For the last few months, Bostonians wandering the city streets in the rain may have come across poems written on the sidewalk.

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Neat.

Semaphore.

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Meditations.

Searching for enlightenment or just a scenic walk? Look for a labyrinth. Hiding in backyards, standing guard below a mountain, resting on the edge of a beach, shrouded by trees deep in the forest: Labyrinths can be found all over the world.

Beware—not all circuitous paths are labyrinths. Mazes, for example, are completely different; they may have one correct path, but are designed to trick someone into hitting a dead end or getting lost. If you associate the word “labyrinth” with the Minotaur of Daedalus or David Bowie’s Goblin King, you’ve been mislead. Unlike those pop culture mazes, real labyrinths only have one route and contain no wrong turns. They aren’t puzzles; they are meditations.

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Occurence.

Want to be mesmerized by an expanding orange glow while being reminded of how little and flightless you are? Then ebird.org's bird occurrence maps, which track the movement of 57 different bird species across the US using lava lamp-esque visuals, are perfect for you. 

The maps, a collaboration between the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, are predictions for how likely you are to find any given bird on a one kilometer walk at 7 a.m. in the morning. They are built from a massive collection of data–280 million observations from around the world submitted by thousands of birdwatchers–and use a method known as the Spatio-Temporal Exploratory Model (STEM).  

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Soundseeing.

"Soundseeing?"

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More.

Unobservable.

The San Diego Studies is a series of short videos that manipulate time to reveal otherwise unobservable rhythms and movement in the city. There are no CG elements, these are all real kites that have been separated from their original shots and compiled together.

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Hedge.

Taken July 28, 1962, the cutting of the highest hedge of England, in Cirencester. The hedge is 11 meters high and was planted in 1720. 

Road-tripping.

... [T]he result of a painstaking and admittedly quixotic effort to catalog the country as it has been described in the American road-tripping literature.

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Thank You, Jessica.

Bunt.

The physics of the bunt.

Know it. Learn it. Live it.

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Downpour.

A field of falling water that pauses wherever a human body is detected, Rain Room offers visitors the experience of controlling the rain. Known for their distinctive approach to contemporary digital practice, Random International’s experimental projects come alive through audience interaction—and Rain Room is their largest and most ambitious to date. The work invites visitors to explore the roles that science, technology, and human ingenuity can play in stabilizing our environment. Using digital technology, Rain Room creates a carefully choreographed downpour, simultaneously encouraging people to become performers on an unexpected stage and creating an intimate atmosphere of contemplation.

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Thank you, Christopher.

Eagle-eye.

Eagle-eye view …

Believe.

What We Believe …

1. There is something NEW under the sun, every day, all over the world.

2. Around the corner is something that will SURPRISE the hell out of you.

3. Atlas Obscura is for people who still believe in DISCOVERY.

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Liberation.

We were at the Ritz Bar. I was on my third martini and Hemingway was on his fourth when the bartender made a speech.  Though the accolades were directed at him, Hemingway leaned into my ear and said, “Bartenders should stick to what they do best – bartending.” I had to agree. The acoustics weren’t conducive to formal speeches, especially long ones.  Besides, our cocktails were getting warm.  We chinked glasses, exchanged nods and sneaked sips during the toast.

1929? 1949? Nope: Aug. 24, 1999.  The Hemingway in question? Jack Hemingway, son of Ernest and Hadley, father to Margaux and Mariel. The occasion?  An exclusive party to celebrate the 55^th anniversary of Ernest Hemingway’s “liberation” of the Ritz.

For those of you who don’t know this particular footnote in Hemingway lore, just after the Allied troops declared victory on Aug. 24, 1944, Hemingway, with a band of irregulars just outside the Paris periphery, sped straight to the Place Vendome.

Their self-appointed mission was to relieve the Nazi officers of their occupation headquarters: the Hotel Ritz.  That night, as word spread that the war was over, Papa and crew played host to one of the most jubilant parties the Ritz has ever seen. Fifty-five years later, people were still celebrating, and still remembering.

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Transarquitetônica.

Given a cavernous gallery space at the Museu de Arte Contemporânea da Universidade in São Paulo, artist Henrique Oliveira has created Transarquitetônica, a breathtaking installation from plywood, which fills the room with twisted tree roots large enough for gallery visitors to walk inside.



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Fireworks.

A drone's-eye view of fireworks …

Visualization.

Mitchell, Best-Candidate IV Sampling of van Gogh's A Starry Night, undated

Algorithms are a fascinating use case for visualization. To visualize an algorithm, we don’t merely fit data to a chart; there is no primary dataset. Instead there are logical rules that describe behavior. This may be why algorithm visualizations are so unusual, as designers experiment with novel forms to better communicate. This is reason enough to study them.

But algorithms are also a reminder that visualization is more than a tool for finding patterns in data. Visualization leverages the human visual system to augment human intellect: we can use it to better understand these important abstract processes, and perhaps other things, too.

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Laws.

Physicist Geoffrey West has found that simple, mathematical laws govern the properties of cities -- that wealth, crime rate, walking speed and many other aspects of a city can be deduced from a single number: the city's population. In this talk he shows how it works and how similar laws hold for organisms and corporations.



West's site, here.

Scaling and fractals, here.

Power laws here, here, and here .