A couple of days ago I overheard a student asking another staff member if they could see an example of some work done by the previous year’s students, to help them with a current assignment. I think most lecturers get asked that fairly frequently, and I’m not quite sure what the best response is. On […]
Continue readingMonth: September 2010
Dimensional analysis
In my experimental physics class, I’ve been doing a bit of work with the students on dimensions and dimensional analysis. Most people who’ve done some physics have some intuition about it, but dimensional analysis puts it on a formal, and often useful footing. Here’s a brief potted summary for those who don’t want to try […]
Continue readingWindy Hamilton
With our low-pressure-area-the-size-of-Australia still very much in residence, I’m beginning to forget what a still, sunny day is like. I have to say that in my experience (six years) Hamilton is a pretty wind-free place. It’s certainly a lot quieter than where I lived near Portsmouth in the UK, which would be frequently blasted by […]
Continue readingQuantum finance
I would say I generally think captialism is a good idea, but after my experience on Tuesday night I am beginning to wonder. Does any of this sound familar? Ten years ago I bought a policy (call it policy 1) with financial organisation A. It was a ten-year one – paying out just a few days […]
Continue readingClever lenses
I’ve just bought a new pair of glasses. The prescription is a little different from my old pair, meaning that although everything is slightly sharper the world seems to curve downwards a bit towards my right. That’s just my brain getting used to the new way in which the world is projected onto my retina – […]
Continue readingSeal level rises
I received an email yesterday alerting me to an upcoming news brief on the implications of seal level rise as a result of climate change. A rise in seal level is something that I hadn’t thought of before. I’m not sure whether we are talking about specific species of seal, like the New Zealand fur […]
Continue readingThe academic poster
I was having a conversation this morning about the status of the poster at an academic conference. At most conferences there will be one or more ‘poster sessions’. A ‘poster presentation’ is an alternative to an oral presentation – instead of preparing power point slides to send your audience to sleep, you do the same with […]
Continue readingMeasuring the speed of light
Earthquakes are not the only thing that can cause a building to move. Simple expansion and contraction as a building heats and cools can move walls around. Not so you’d notice with the naked eye, but certainly noticeable if you have mirrors attached to the walls to guide a laser beam around a lab. That’s […]
Continue readingWhy are eggs egg-shaped?
Here’s a nice bit of news that’s come out of Christchurch in the last few days. The kiwi eggs being incubated at Willowbank wildlife reserve survived the earthquake, and one of them has now hatched into an adorable baby bird, who now carries the name ‘Richter’. (N.B. Kiwi aren’t adorable – from what I’ve heard they […]
Continue readingPity the poor PhD student…
I’ve recently been asked to be an examiner for a PhD thesis. This is the first time I’ve been given this honour. It is a slightly disconcerting thought as the success of the last three (or possibly more) years of a student’s life hangs on what I choose to say about his thesis. When I […]
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