The Videos of RSA Animate

About a dozen interesting 11 minute lectures by current leading minds, are offered by RSA Animate, a new project of a very old London group. They are illustrated during the talk in a most unique way by. Well worth the listening. Their models of community and the change upon us, are most intriguing.

"For over 250 years, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) has been a cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress. Our approach is multi-disciplinary, politically independent and combines cutting edge research and policy development with practical action."

The videos are also collected on youtube

HTwins.net - The Scale of the Universe

the size of things outside our normal lives is hard to comprehend.
things get incredibly bigger and also smaller than we can really fathom.

this site starts of with a few things a centimeter or so in size.
familiar things. manageable.
then you move a slider for bigger or smaller. and each pops up or down a factor of ten.
familiar things. still manageable.
suddenly you are seeing how small viruses are and how large planets are.
less familiar things. still manageable.
then there you are
so small "it makes no sense to be smaller" - strings and quantum foam
so huge "we can't see any further" - the very edge of creation
completely unfamiliar, yet still manageable.
well done.

Space.com : The Black Hole That Made You Possible

here's an excellent series of 4 short 5 min videos on space.com on black holes. they are rather well hidden on their site and don't show up on searchs for black hole info though lots and lots of data does.

"the black hole that made you possible" is a series of 4 episodes. here is the link to the first episode. the others are presented on the same page.

the lectures have wonderful animations and space telescope shots, and are very up-to-date in terms of changing, quick moving dance between theory and observation on this subject.