Fireworks

To celebrate the 50th birthday of CERN a firework display was held telling the story of the universe. It included a big bang (obviously), inflation, fundamental forces, matter, stars and planets. According to Rolf Landau, who helped design it, the public may have got lost when the four forces of nature diverged but the battle between matter and anti matter was a treat.

In related news Disney have developed a new type of fireworks which is much more accurate, conventional fireworks have an error of +/- 10% in altitude. Apparently the Disney ones explode with an accuracy of +/- 25ms, although i have no idea what that works out at in terms of altitude.

Looks like we might be seeing much more ambitious and impressive displays in future – perhaps the story of life, or the Lord of the Rings in fireworks. Any other suggestions?

(From New Scientist)