I was reading this weekend in January’s physicsworld some curiously contrasting articles on the state of physics funding in various countries. The UK has recently announced some serious cutbacks to their international collaborative projects, in an attempt to claw back 40 million pounds that was mis-spent a couple of years ago following an accounting error. Whoops. […]
Continue readingMonth: February 2010
Two is a big number
In an earlier post I made the outrageous claim that three is a working approximation to infinity. If you thought that was ambitious, have a read of the following extract from an abstract that I discovered this morning while doing a bit of literature searching as part of my research. It’s a great insight into the mind […]
Continue readingThe rise and rise of the science journal
Every time I blink I seem to get another email from a science journal that I haven’t heard of inviting me to contribute to their most prestiguous publication. It’s all very flattering to get emails telling me that as a world leader in organic chemistry research I am invited to contribute to their well-read journal, […]
Continue readingInteresting but useless fact
According to the fount of all knowledge – Wikipedia 😉 – the only three countries not to have adopted the System Internationale units are Burma/Myanmar, Liberia and the United States of America. I can’t help thinking that there is something deeply significant about those three countries falling into the same group, but I can’t quite […]
Continue readingRemember your units
As any physics student knows (or should know), units are important things. By ‘unit’ I mean a measure of the kind of quantity you are dealing with. So if it’s mass, then a kilogram, a gram, an ounce, etc are all units; if it’s distance, then kilometres, light-years, feet are all units. Units are essential […]
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