Mosiac sphere

A miscellany

Temperature

Seashells under glass

Candles on a glass table

Blue spheres

AquaGems. The patterns visible in some are reflections from the glass container.

"Fried" marbles, with internal fractures caused by rapid heating and cooling

Vessels filled with light

These are essentially small, static versions of Lumia compositions. The light source is a Brightspot.

Overturned vase and dried rose

Glass harmonica

This instrument is played by rubbing a wet finger along the rims of different-sized glass bowls (as one can do with a wineglass), creating different notes. Its sound (another sample here) is pleasant but vaguely unnerving. According to Wikipedia, there is a deep-seated sensory reason for this spookiness:

The somewhat disorienting quality of the ethereal sound is due in part to the way that humans perceive and locate ranges of sounds. Above 4,000 Hertz we primarily use the volume of the sound to differentiate between each ear (left and right) and thus triangulate, or locate, the source. Below 1,000 Hertz we use the 'phase differences' of sound waves arriving at our ears to identify left and right for location. The predominant timbre of the armonica is in the range from 1,000-4,000 hertz, which coincides with the sound range where the brain is 'not quite sure' and thus we have difficulty locating it in space (where it comes from), and referencing the source of the sound (the materials and techniques used to produce it).

Radioactive ghost peacock

Composition with uranium glass vase, albino peacock feather, blacklight, and black velvet.

Strange luminous and transparent entities found amidst the branches of a small coniferous tree

More below the fold:

Fishbowl

Glass rose with plasma light

Marbles on marble

Visual music and digital dreams

Lumia is an art form invented by Thomas Wilfred in 1919, consisting of light refracted through glass of different colors and forms, creating ethereal abstract forms. Wilfred created a device he dubbed the Clavilux, from the Latin for "keyed light". This device was to light as a musical instrument is to sound; continuing the musical analogy, it had a turntable that rotated glass disks like records.

A modern analog to Lumia might be the abstract compositions of the screensaver Electric Sheep, created by feedback between millions of computers "dreaming" in sleep mode.

Electric Sheep screenshot from Wikimedia Commons.

Videos of both can be seen below the fold.

Uranium glass

This form of glass, popular in the early 20th century and now a collector's item, contains uranium for color, is mildly radioactive (not enough to be harmful), and glows lurid green under ultraviolet light. Image from Wikipedia; more can be found here and here.