I’ve been sent this link to a movie of a shock wave from a trombone. You’ve got to feel sorry for the poor clarinetist who is sitting in front. This sort of thing can be done neatly with the method of schlieren imagaing. (See some more examples here) This is a ‘simple’ way of picking up […]
Continue readingMonth: May 2011
Wet house, dry house?
We’re looking for a new house at the moment. We’ve decided to be a lot more environmentally friendly and shift out of Cambridge and move to Hamilton to cut down the pesky commute in the mornings and evenings. We haven’t made much progress, though, with finding a house – what we’re looking for is in […]
Continue readingThe science logbook
In order to help my attempt at doing a ‘reflective journal’ as part of my Postgraduate Diploma of Tertiary Teaching, I’ve had a read of an article by Simon Borg: "The research journal: a tool for promoting and understanding researcher development", Language Teaching Research 5(2), 156-177 (2001). I was given it as an example of […]
Continue readingThe physics of slugs
At Tuesday night’s Cafe Scientifique, we had a very entertaining discussion, led by Mike Wilson from AgResearch, on that most cute and cuddly animal, the slug. Let’s face it, in terms of looks and popularity, the slug doesn’t have a lot going for it, but it’s certainly a very interesting creature. I learnt a fair bit […]
Continue readingPhysicists on film
Last night we went to the movies. We had free passes that needed using by the end of the week, so we turned up at Chartwell early evening without knowing what was showing. Not wishing to see a film about adultery, we decided against ‘Water for Elephants’ (or whatever it’s called) and picked Thor. If […]
Continue readingPaint
Question: What’s more tedious than watching paint dry? Answer: Waiting for a dry day so you can put the paint on in the first place. Or, to be closer to the truth, waiting for a dry day so that the guy you’ve hired to do the painting can get on and finish it. Getting the […]
Continue readingStudent DIY
Here’s a summary of a conversation I had with a student in a lab yesterday. I can’t remember the exact words, but it went something along these lines: Student (showing me some work): Is this right? Me: What do you think? Student: I don’t know Me: Well, is there anything about it that makes you […]
Continue readingThree heads are better than one
It’s often surprising how different people can bring different approaches to the same problem, but in a way that gets you moving forward. I experienced a good example last week. A PhD student has been tangled in a nasty net of circuit analysis, trying to understand how a particular circuit does what it does. I’ve […]
Continue readingMy first go with Votapedia
Yesterday I had my first attempt at using the Votapedia audience response system. For those that don’t know it, it’s a web-based thing that’s come out of CSIRO in Australia, and in the broadest of broad terms it gives a teacher (me) the facility to do a Who Wants to be a Millionaire? ask-the-audience question. […]
Continue readingPiezoelectricity
I went to a very informative seminar this morning by Peter Pott, of the Technical University, Darmstadt, Germany. He gave a very nice introduction to the world of piezoelectric devices. In short, a piezoelectric thing is something that acquires a voltage across it when it is squeezed, stretched, sheared, etc. They can be used as […]
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