Archive for January 11th, 2009

Beijing Olympic – First ferris wheel on bridge in tianjin to rap body construction

Sunday, January 11th, 2009
First ferris wheel on bridge in tianjin to rap body construction
A gigantic ferris wheel, which claims to be the world’s only one built over a bridge, on the Haihe River in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, will have its body officially completed on Tuesday.

The Tianjin Eye, a gigantic ferris wheel constructed on Yongle Bridge over the Haihe River, will have its body completed on Tuesday morning, later allowing visitors a spectacular view of more than 120 meters above the ground.

Workers were still busy jointing and fixing the last sections of the rotary table on Monday. After the successful completion of the body, they will start to test the ferris wheel’s loading ability by using sandbags, followed by the installation of capsules and the electronic drive.

The 110 meter diameter ferris wheel will lift people 120 meters up into the air, as high as one 35-storey building, and promise a grand view of around 40 square kilometers over the surrounding city.

It is reported to be the only ferris wheel in the world that’s erected above a bridge.

There will be 48 capsules on the ferris wheel, each of them carrying up to 8 people at a time. It will take half an hour for this slow-rotating observation wheel to complete a full circle.

(Source: en.beijing2008.cn)

Chinese Culture – Scientific Secrets in Magic Performances

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

 

Most people like watching magic performances and they often feel surprised and excited at those intricate items. In fact, magic is not that mysterious. Frankly speaking, it cannot exist without specially designed props, carefully arranged performance, trained handling skills and scientific principles of acoustics, optics, electrics, chemistry, mechanics and color.

 

The performer(s) take the opportunity, sell the dummy and look one way and row another to divert audiences’ attention so as to make use of their wrong impression of hearing and vision and produce many wonderful visions before them.

 

Performing ways of magic vary a lot, which all fall into the following categories — make something out of nothing, turn something into nothing, reverse broken things to their original whole, transfigure instantly, mix the false with the genuine, quick transposal and so on. No matter which kind of performing way is employed, all magic performances involve application of certain scientific principles.

 

The value of magic performance lies in the surprise it creates and all the changes must be out of the expectations of the audience. Besides the skills with hands, the success of a magic item also requires special design and careful arrangement. Magic performances can broaden viewers’ vision and trigger their interest in science.

Source: chinaculture.org

Chinese Pinyin – bi (毙)

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

毙  [bì]

国标码:B1D0 部首:比 笔画:10 笔顺:1535135435
die violently
(Source: dict.cn)