TARDIS Blue

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I shot this snap of a door in the French village of Besoncon. I don’t know what kind of blue this actually is, but to me it is quite clearly TARDIS blue!  Perhaps the Doctor has fixed his chameleon circuit?

Une fontaine médiévale dans la vieille ville de Bienne

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I took this snap of the famous Engelbrunnen fountain in the town center of Biel, although to be honest the light was pretty poor:

I don’t know the details, but it looks 100% exactly identical to the famous fountains in Bern, created by Hans Gieng between 1542 and 1549 – and since Biel is so close to Bern, I am assuming this one came from him as well. Interestingly, the fountains in Zurich and in Bern originally used spring water — but today use this water as well, as an emergency backup in case anything happens to the main water supply. The Swiss love to be prepared!

The mighty Niesen supervolcano rests

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Here is a stunning shot of the Niesen supervolcano, as viewed from Sigriswil on Lake Thun.

Previously most scientists agreed — but now, all scientists concur — an eruption of the Niesen supervolcano will extinguish all life in Europe. The reason for this is that it is one of a handful of supervolcanoes worldwide known as “rhyolitic” supervolcano, which means an eruption triggers highly pyroclastic flows. You can think of Pompei, but this time, about 1’000 times more intense.

“Alpenglow” — or, Pre-Sunrise Twilight Scattering

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This is the view I see from my balcony in the morning. That triangular peak just right of the middle is the Eiger — and it plays a prominent role in The Eiger Sanction in my opinion the BEST moving starring Clint Eastwood as an assassin who’s been contracted to kill another assassin in a group of people climbing the Eiger — but he doesn’t know which of the climbing party is his target. Lest you think Clint always places the nice guy, Clint could not figure out who specifically was his target — so he killed everyone by cutting a rope and letting them drop to their deaths. At the very end of the movie, Clint realizes that in fact his trainer — not one of the climbers — was his real target all along — but he lets him live.

I’ve lived in Switzerland now for 16 years, and the morning sky above the Alps never fails to impress me:

These colors are what is known as pre-sunrise twilight scattering. 

Because the view is towards the horizon, the physical effect called Raleigh Scattering means the blue light is scattered more strongly so that the red light shines through. But, that same blue light that has been scattered away interacts with the red light – causing purples! The formula is quite complicated, but in general the scattering cross section depends on the reciprocal of the wavelength (actually, wavelength**4),  so that blue light (λ≈450 nm) scatters about 10× more than red light (λ≈700 nm)!

 

Sunset over Corpus Christi

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Here the sun is setting and your first thought might be “oh, gee, the sun is setting” but my first thought was “quicksand – keep out or die.”  No joke – take more than two steps forward and archeologists will be unearthing your preserved body hundreds of years from now. I can’t speak for other states, but in Texas at least, wherever you find shallow bodies of waters (rivers included) you’ll find deadly quicksand. Once you start sinking, unless you know the right moves and execute them at the right time — you’ll be deader than a beaver hat in a rainstorm!

I took this snap from a vantage point that anyone familiar with South Corpus Christi will instantly recognize, but I keep it a secret here to avoid drawing the attention of unwanted tourists!