Prism

Yeah yeah, Dark Side of the Moon and shit, but seriously - Splitting light up into its constituent spectral colors is the best fun ever.

This process probably has some real-world, important scientific applications - and that's great and all, but I'm just impressed that you can "do rainbows" with a Prism. Prism is a fucking remarkable word, too - doesn't even need very many vowels. Cool shit.

Apparently there's also something called a "Grism". Its a Grating Prism, and I believe its used in telescopes. Grism. That's funny.

Light-years

A light-year is a unit of measurement, equal to just under 10 trillion kilometres. As defined by the International Astronomical Union, a light-year is the distance that light travels in a vacuum in one (Earth) Year.

Firstly, its "just under" 10 trillion kilometres. 10 trillion. That's hilarious.

Secondly for some probably really good reason, there is an organization called the "International Astronomical Union" (IAU). That's awesome. I'd love to be a member of that shit.

Thirdly, the closest star to the earth, not including "our" sun, is named Alpha Centauri. It is 4.3 light years away from the earth.

Fourthly, sorry about the picture. I just like pictures and wasn't sure what to use to "visually represent" a light-year. This is some gas, or something... photographed using the Hubble Space Telescope.