Exploring the Art and Science of Stopping Time: A CD-ROM Based on the Life and Work of Harold E. Edgerton (Windows & Mac)

Insightful scientist, exceptional teacher, ingenious inventor, successful entrepreneur, and acclaimed artist-Harold E. "Doc" Edgerton, chief developer of the electronic strobe, was all of these. Whatever his guise, he taught by his own example that science is an exciting adventure in which having fun and satisfying one's curiosity are important parts of even the most "technical" enterprise.

This innovative CD-ROM was created to capture some of Edgerton's spirit and vision and to transmit it to a new generation. Users not only learn about his life and philosophy but enter his world-famous laboratory—Strobe Alley at MIT—and play with some of the experiments he created to "see the unseen," to observe events that happen at high speeds.

Users can choose from three "rooms": Biography, Archives, and Strobe Alley. In the Biography room users explore a wide array of topics highlighting Edgerton's life and the impulses behind his work, examining an extensive library of films clips and other materials along the way. In the Archives room users view Edgerton's fascinating visual work and see how it was created; subject headings include Drops and Splashes, Bullets and Blasts, Athletics, Humans in Motion, Creatures, and Observations. In Strobe Alley users can actually leaf through his explanatory videos and texts while they operate experiments that will help them to understand the dynamics of flowing water, bursting balloons, bouncing balls, and rotating fans; to find out what goes on inside a strobe in a camera; and even to sample a set of nineteenth-century toys that stop and then reconnect flows of movement.

Users of all ages will find Exploring the Art and Science of Stopping Time an ideal introduction to science, art, and technology as sources of fun as well as insight.

The CD-ROM is playable on computers using either Apple Macintosh (7.x or later) or Windows (3.1, 95, or 98) operating systems.