A visit from Derek and Henry

Fellow science YouTubers Henry Reich (minutephysics) and Derek Muller (veritasium) have just paid a visit to Nottingham.

Here are some photos:

Robin Hood statue with (Derek, Henry, Brady)

Derek interviews Professor Poliakoff (Henry films)

The Prof shows his supercritical fluid demo

Derek and Henry with Brady's house in the background

Just kidding, it was Chatsworth House

Henry and a beloved sheep!

Skyping our mate Destin at his Alabama arsenal

Heading out for dinner in Mrs PeriodicVideos' toy car!

It's not the wind... Henry pulled that face on purpose!!!!

Sunflower missing a spiral?

A while back Dr James Grime planted a sunflower in my backyard.



He was trying to raise awareness for the Turing's Sunflower project.

Well I'm pleased to report the potted sunflower is all grown up.



Slight problem though. We counted the seed spirals which supposedly should match with Fibonacci numbers.

In one direction got a match (34) but in the other direction we seem one short (54).

The seeds are notoriously hard to count though!

Have we got it wrong?

I've put a higher res version of the pic on Flickr.

Send us your Rubik's Cube solve...

I'm still looking for people to send in footage of themselves solving Rubik's Cubes.

It needs to be YOUR video and I'll include it in an upcoming series of films we're doing on Rubik's Cubes.

You can email it to me at numberphile@gmail.com or post it on YouTube and send me a link.

Extra credit if you include a shout-out to Numberphile, like these people did (but it's not necessary):





If you can't make a video, then at least send a photo!

Brady gets lucky?

Numberphile viewers are brilliant. One of them, Alan Stewart, has very promptly (*) emailed me about the latest video.

In the film, I attempt to throw a one-roll Yahtzee.

The odds of accomplishing such a feat (five matching dice showing any number) are 1 in 1,296.

I achieved the feat on the 627th roll. According to Alan's spreadsheet and graph (below), there was a 38% probability I would have reached my goal so early.

To reach a 95% chance of success, I'd have needed 3,881 rolls.

So 627 doesn't seem such an ordeal after all.

Here's the video:



(*) Alan's email arrived in the numberphile inbox at 10am - exactly one hour after the video was published!

Can you solve a Rubik's Cube?

Do you know how to solve a Rubik's Cube (or know someone who can)?

We've got an upcoming video for Numberphile about the cube and would love to feature a few cameos from our viewers.

Email me a short video (it doesn't matter if it is a bit rubbish or just filmed or your mobile phone!)

I'll try to make sure you get a brief appearance in the video.

The email address is numberphile@gmail.com

PS: A video is best, but just a photo of you with a Rubik's Cube, past or present, would also be nice!!!

Methane on the Nose

Cute viewer pic this one!

This is River from Plainfield, Vermont, USA, and she's a fan of our Periodic Table of Videos.

She's modelling a molecule of methane.

The photo was sent in by her dad, Josh, who also watches Sixty Symbols... Sounds like my kind of guy!

Send any pics to periodicvideos at gmail. We love viewer photos.



VIEWER PHOTOS ON FLICKR

Oh, and here's our methane video...

The Tarantula Nebula and its HUGE stars

We've posted two videos in the past week or so about the epic Tarantula Nebula (aka NGC 2070).

The nebula is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, the larger of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies.

One of our experts on Deep Sky Videos, Professor Paul Crowther, is an expert on the nebula.

The first video we posted dealt with the massive stars in its core.



The second video deals with a runaway star which has "escaped" the central region.



Visit the Deep Sky Videos website: http://www.deepskyvideos.com/