Whatever Wednesday - Blow Your Mind Edition

I've always been fascinated by scientific principles and how they show the interconnectedness of life and matter. Here's some of my favorites.

Theoretical physicist Brian Cox now does a lot of TV work, trying to garner interest in the sciences and expanding people's understanding of how things work in this reality. I found this clip (from BBC's "A Night with the Stars") via the science and science fiction web site io9.

The following web site is one of my favorites on the Internet. "The Scale of the Universe" shows the large and small of things that exist in our reality. Use the scroller at the bottom of the page after it loads to move forward and backward in size - it can make you feel infinitely big or little, depending on which end of the scale you are on. (I couldn't embed it on this page. Clicking the link below will take you to the site... just don't completely lose yourself and forget to come back.)

The Scale of the Universe

Any time our science teachers in junior high didn't know what to do for the day - or wanted an easy time of it - they would pop in a VCR tape of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage." And I'm not complaining about that...

The 13-episode series covered all aspects of science, from the large to the small, from development of the universe to the development of life on Earth. If you've never seen it, it's worth the watch. Or if you'd rather wait, Seth McFarlane (yes, of "Family Guy" fame), Ann Druyan (Sagan's widow and co-writer) and astrophysicist Steven Soter (who worked with Sagan on the original) are creating a successor series called "Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey" for 2013.

The original series was one of the most influential things from my youth. It was mid-bending and eye-opening. Below is a clip from the original series where Sagan explains humanity's relationship to all of time in this universe.

Finally, to end things on a lighter note, "The Big Bang Theory." No, not the beginning of the universe - the TV show. Mixed with "Firefly." This inventive picture by designer Megan Levens, found over at zap2it, shows the "Big Bang Theory" cast as the characters from "Firefly."

Can't say I agree with all the pairings but the idea is fun!