We get so desensitized to seeing the impossible through visual FX in film and television, yet it’s clear that even in “the real world”, the impossible can happen every day. Technologists and scientists are continually unraveling and redefining what we consider part of our agreed-upon reality.
Quantive Levitation lets you finally have controllable flying car races.
Non-Newtonian fluids can dance on speaker cones to dub step
Hydrophobic coatings let you dip a finger in water without getting wet.
Superfluid helium can defy gravity through zero viscosity
5: A CNC Milling machine. While the sound quality is underwhelming, I had to give it bonus points for trying to play the MacGuyver Themesong on a piece of industrial equipment.
4: The Scanner. Here it plays a rendition of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. HP even included an easter egg in some scanners which would let it play Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.
3) The Theremin. What 1950′s sci-fi soundtrack would be complete without the eerie croon of a theremin? Or, in this case, a robot capable of playing Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” on a theremin. For a more historical spin, here’s the inventor, Leon Theremin, demoing his creation himself.
#2) The Floppy Drive. Here it plays Bach’s Toccata & Fugue in D Minor. This may be the best use of floppy drives since the Floppy RAID.
#1) The Tesla Coil. While invented by Nikola Tesla as early as the late 1800′s, it’s only been the past 10 years or so that geeks have spread awareness of the awe-inspiring power of music made by thousands of volts of electricity. Arc Attack are definitely not the only physics geniuses to configure a Tesla coil for music, but they’re the first to play the Star Wars Imperial March on America’s Got Talent, I’m guessing.
“This is like if MIT had a marching band” – Howie Mandel
Technology
