65th birthday celebrations of Jan Palous (our head of group), in which we enact a generally-accepted theory of star formation. Turbulence in the interstellar medium (dry ice) creates filaments (long streams of paper) which eventually fragment into Bonnor-Ebert spheres (scientists wearing hats with hydrodynamic equation for said spheres). These then collapse under gravity to form stars of different masses (different coloured coats) which shine by thermonuclear fusion (flashlights).
Stellar winds eject material (bits of confetti) into the interstellar medium and also disperse the gas (with hair dryers). The massive stars expand (inflate balloons) and eventually explode (burst balloon, camera flash) releasing metals (bits of foil) into the interstellar medium. One of them becomes a black hole (black hat with Kerr metric) another a pulsar (blue hat, spinning with flashlight).
Then the whole thing repeats but the new stars have higher metallicity (shiny masks).
Considering that we practised this a total of two (count 'em TWO) times and the dry ice was only delivered 30 minutes before the start, the various mishaps along the way could have been much worse !
Narrated by me. If you ever had the strange urge to find out what I sound like, now is probably your only chance.
Fabulous!
ReplyDeleteIt really got the essence.
Very funny and helpful
^_^