Forget the rugby – the two big stories of the week are both physical science and both Italian: the faster-than-light neutrinos arriving at Gran Sasso and the ludicrous prosecution of Italian seismologists over the 2009 l’Aquila earthquake. In some respects, the two are related, in that they both ask questions about what science is about, […]
Continue readingYear: 2011
Why are radio telescopes so big?
It’s great to hear that NZ is an integral part of the Australasian bid for a giant radio-telescope network. The Square Kilometre Array promises to produce some great images of southern skies in the radio frequency band. Radio waves are part of the electromagnetic spectrum, just like light waves, and can be used to provide […]
Continue readingScratch cards – the sequel
At the end of last week I talked about watching the use of multiple choice scratch cards in an electronics tutorial. Well, on Monday afternoon, I tried them out myself, with two different groups of students. It was a first-year physics class – I have two tutorial groups of these, the first on Mondays from […]
Continue readingThe end of cold dark matter?
There have been recent murmurings that Cold Dark Matter (CDM) is in trouble. Dark matter is stuff that is hypothesized to make up a fair chunk (23%-ish) of what is in the universe (as opposed to normal matter – the stuff we ‘see’ and experiment with – which may make up only 5% what’s in […]
Continue readingScratch Cards
Recently I mentioned the use of scratch-cards to provide instant feedback for students. Yesterday, a colleague of mine tried it out on a class of 2nd year electronics students, and I sat in to watch. The most obvious impact was that students talked to each other. We were in a packed room, set-up linearly, so […]
Continue readingA photon walks into a hotel…
A photon walks into a hotel and checks in. "Do you want a hand with your luggage?" asks the receptionist. "No thanks", replies the photon, "I’m travelling light". Thanks to my friend Julie for that one. But it got me thinking about the quantum nature of things that may not immediately appear quantum-like. There’s a […]
Continue readingThe problem with having odd-shaped balls…
…by which, of course, I mean rugby balls. To be precise, a rugby ball is a prolate ellipsoid – that is, something that is like a 3d version of an ellipse, but having a cross-section along its long axis of a circle. (A flying-saucer would be an oblate ellipsoid) Rugby balls behave awkwardly. In one […]
Continue readingFriday afternoon before the Cup starts
So it’s Friday afternoon and I, like half the people at university today, are more focused on tonight’s opening game than they are on work. So, I’m not feeling too inspired to put in a long blog entry today. But I will mention that yesterday I tried a ‘delayed mark’ approach when I returned a […]
Continue readingThermoeconomics
I’ve been following with a bit of interest the "slow-motion crisis" of the European debt. One of its consequences is some unhealthy shifts in exchange rates – for example the soaring Swiss Franc. That hurts Swiss exporters. In the last couple of days, Switzerland has decided that this isn’t acceptable and is taking drastic measures […]
Continue readingComputer modelling of aircraft boarding
I love this article I came across on the BBC website this weekend. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14717695 As someone who’s travelled on a lot of planes, I can fully understand the motivation to study methods of boarding a plane. Traditionally, boarding is done in this sequence: 1. Those needing special assistance (e.g. those for whom walking is difficult) […]
Continue reading