The question is: "Who's ALEXIS WILKE ?"

Beautiful 'Alexis' Title, a must see!

See his company's web site
My Angel is a Gargoyle!
Am I just a pure project in some Los Alamos Laboratory?

Am I a poster?

Am I a disease?

French Flag

Version
Francaise!

Well, how could anyone answer such a question? The best way would be to try hard to present oneself... It still doesn't mean a lot, but it might give a pretty good definition of who I am.

The Symmetric Theory

Where I want to go!

(Or the international space station)

Early Morning before a Shower First I got some pictures of me. The camera I used isn't the best, but oh well... It's better than nothing!

Here, on the left, you can see me early morning...

Well... Yes I look better after a shower (on the right,) I have to say that it wakes you up! Time to eat a good breakfast and talk about science!!!

A small packet of GIFs for those who want old animations... Most are bad, but a few are fine and these are all free. You can also browse them here.

And below is a picture of where I live. It's called California (NGC1499).

DSS image. © CalTech/Palomar
Later, after the shower
The image of the day! :) My most recent page!

A picture of the moon & Venus aligned The image on the left is a picture I took on April 22, 2004 of the moon aligned with Venus. Click on the image to see the full size images.

There is also one thing I particularly enjoy: Astronomy! You may want to look at an interesting page of NASA's current work. I also read about the birth of stars, I've got a collection of images of the M16 gazeous area. Check it out!

Ever heard about Mars? All we know and would like to know about mars can be found in the JPL Mars pages. And hurry up! The Mars Pathfinder already left the earth...
A picture of Io Here, on the left, you can enjoy a picture of Io. Io is a moon of Jupiter, the biggest planet in the solar system. This moon is well know for it has a very high volcanic activity due to the gravity contraction between itself and Jupiter (called a tide effect.) Io will probably never be visited by humans because of its high levels of nuclear radiation (so strong it can kill a human in less than a day.)

The image has been taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 from the Hubble Space Telescope. (J. Spence/Lowell Observatory)

Another part of astronomy which is very interesting to me, is planetary exploration and (funny) discoveries. The NASA and many others are working on Space Missions (130Kb) to visit our solar system and beyond.

To me, one of the most interesting planets is the smallest satellite of Uranus (well... the smallest and nearest of the 5 big satellites, there are some other tiny moons turning around Uranus.) Miranda, the eleventh satellite, is only 472 km in diameter. Its mass is about 6.3e16 tons. Its temperature is as cold as -187°C. It orbits around Uranus at a distance of 117,200 to 129,850 km. It has a synchronized rotation (in other words, the same side is always shown to the planet.) Miranda was found by Kuiper in 1948.

Today, the unsolved problem of Miranda is that we can find on its surface two quite different ages: a very old one (the oldest known in Uranus system) and a very young one (the youngest known in Uranus system.) We could define the age using two means: the rock marks, showing a movement; and a collection of craters, like we can see on the moon. The deepest canyons are about 20 km high.

The current best answer to this mystery is the possiblity that some part of the planet was covered by a thick layer of ice which would have, like on the earth, changed the surface to what it looks like now. Note that the planet is still 50% covered by water ice.

Another sample of a planet covered by ice and pulled appart by it is Ganymede one of Jupiter's satellite.

On the right, you can see Miranda (top) and Oberon (bottom,) two of Uranus satellites.

A picture of Miranda

A picture of Oberon

A picture of the Earth from a humain made Satellite
The picture on the left is one taken by Apollo 11.
It is used throughout my sub-pages to reference my home page.

The Solar System

More about astronomy can be found at the following links:

Isaac Newton Portrait

Isaac Newton - A first step in modern Astronomy



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More Hobbies

Have you ever dreamed to be a Magician? (French)

Ever wondered about Vampires?! Read more about where they come from and why so many people believed in vampires...

Another of my favorites is computing. I'm an engineer, so I like to do my own research in several fields: programming languages, artificial intelligence and database technology. I may also start working on some robotic experiments, as the market orients itself in that direction.

I wish also to make a reference to IEEE which defines the standards for math on computers (among a few other things.)

If you love science fiction books and you are looking into a consequent list of such books (including horror and fantasy) you may enjoy the MIT Sience Fiction Society

And for you to have a laugh, look at this Japanese video. They really are good ping-pong players!.

(Still) looking for good reasons to hate Microsoft? There is a pretty good article to read to get all the information to do just that.

A few articles found in the news paper in 2005: Free as in Freedom.

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The End

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(These pages done by Alexis Wilke (c) 1996-2005)

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Note: the background picture is also a photo of Uranus, with its now visible rings and one of its satellite. All of these pictures are copyrighted, and can't be used commercially without the proper authorisations. Alexis Wilke will not accept responsibility for such usage by other parties.