The final of The3is in Three was a couple of weeks ago now – so I thought I’d better mention it before it becomes too out of date. As was the case last year, it was a great evening of entertainment, compered wonderfully by Te Radar. There were ten stunning three-minute presentations, covering all areas […]
Continue readingMonth: November 2010
So you think you’re good at mechanics?
Calculate the stress in the pole that crosses the picture nearest to you in the upper right corner. And calculate the frequencies of the lowest twenty modes of vibration of the structure. (It’s the temporary stand at Lake Karapiro put up for the World Rowing Championships. Had a very enjoyable day there on Thursday.)
Continue readingAircraft insulation
I read in the NZ Herald this week that one of Air New Zealand’s energy-saving strategies was to make sure an aircraft’s insulation is dry. Apparantly, 200 kg of water can be sucked out of a plane’s insulation. Sounds impressive. The article appeared to be pushing the weight saving as the main cost saving. Two hundred […]
Continue readingUnconventional projectiles
I thought that sometimes I over-analyzed things for their physics content but obviously I have a long way to go… http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/physics-of-angry-birds/ Rhett Alain, a fellow physics-blogger 🙂 discusses his favourite computer game… This reminds me that several years ago I looked at a PhD thesis about the mathematical modelling of deformation – i.e. describing how an object […]
Continue readingWhat’s cooking at the LHC?
I’ve just been perusing CERN’s Twitter site http://www.twitter.com/cern for some of their latest news. While the Higgs is still hiding inside some time-travelling baguette, there’s still some really nice physics arising. This example is one that caught my attention – it’s the detection of a bound state made up of a beauty (or bottom) quark […]
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