Its KNITTING needles
February 8, 2012 8:20 PM   Subscribe

 
Very cool effect!

You know, I grew up in the Deep South, and love the accent. But anytime I hear it, the speaker could be a Nobel laureate physicist talking about quantum chromodynamics, but he'd still just sound like an old cracker redneck* to me.


*I say this as a cracker redneck, myself.
posted by darkstar at 8:33 PM on February 8, 2012 [2 favorites]


This is part of the first video in a series for a partnership between NASA and the American Physical Society to share unique videos from the International Space Station with students

"What did you do in school today?"

"We watched a video on the internet where a guy rubbed a rod and then squirted liquid."

"...?!"
posted by Sys Rq at 8:37 PM on February 8, 2012 [3 favorites]


"IN SPACE."
posted by Sys Rq at 8:40 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]


That is neat!
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:43 PM on February 8, 2012


I had mute on, so when it said "English" at the beginning I thought it was some Russian knitter or something, so was subtitled for that. It took darkstar to get me to unmute and listen.

Not for nothing, but I want to go into space so much that I would stab everyone in line in front of me with a knitting needle if it meant I could go. Sadly, I did the calculations, and there are 4 million people more qualified than me. That would be a lot of stabbing. I did the obvious subsequent calculations and I figure I would need roughly 500,000 knitting needles to stab that many people. Further, that many knitting needles are out of my price range.

Kickstarter here I come! If a D&D stick figure comic can raise half a million dollars I can raise enough money to stab 4 million people with knitting needles!

Space! I'm on my way!
posted by cjorgensen at 8:53 PM on February 8, 2012 [4 favorites]


I am sorely disappointed that there was no actual space knitting.
posted by smirkette at 9:08 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]


One of the nice things about the 'g' on the the end of the word 'knitting' is that when pronounced fully, it marks a clear end to the word, so you don't end up saying 'nitteneedle'.
posted by stbalbach at 9:52 PM on February 8, 2012 [3 favorites]


Dat der iza nittin needal! Yup! It shore is!
posted by Goofyy at 4:30 AM on February 9, 2012 [1 favorite]


That was really neat. And it looks like the drops that have already "landed" don't cause any "gravitational anomalies" for the still-orbiting drops, which seems wrong to me. Isn't charge supposed to spread out over the surface, so wouldn't it spread out along the surface of those landed drops? No wait...that's only on a conductor. Of course.
posted by DU at 4:42 AM on February 9, 2012


Oh my god, that is super cool. I never would have thought that it was so easy to get a charge strong enough to actually make droplets orbit something.

I'd love to see some funding devoted to making a more polished show with space experiments presented by Don Pettit. He does so much awesome stuff up on the ISS, it seems like it would be a great way of raising interest if it was just made a little bit more flashy for the public.
posted by lucidium at 5:22 AM on February 9, 2012


Here's a 47 minute collection of physics experiements and other clips from Don Pettit on the ISS in 2003: Saturday Morning Science

Including favorites like:
Can you tell the difference between a fresh egg and a hardboiled egg... in space?
Can you repair a watch... in space?
Can you float a bubble of water inside a bubble of air inside a bubble of water... in space?

Spoiler alert: Yes.
posted by helicomatic at 6:49 AM on February 9, 2012 [2 favorites]


Nitten needle fetish in space. How many times does he say nitten needle anyway? Other than that, cool!
posted by blue shadows at 9:57 PM on February 9, 2012


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