Have a good look at the photo. The pretty rhododendron to the left of the chair looks a bit odd. That’s because it’s a ghost shrub. No, our garden isn’t haunted, and neither have I doctored the photo; it’s an example of Pepper’s Ghost – an illusion caused by reflections. The bush in question is […]
Continue readingYear: 2012
Look out for the eclipse, 14 November
There’s a great event coming to our neck of the woods soon (by neck-of-the-woods I mean Australasia and South Pacific) – a total solar eclipse, on 14 November (for those like NZ on the west of the international date line) or 13 November (for those on the eastern side – which won’t be many – […]
Continue readingNeed more grunt
When I came to New Zealand nearly nine years ago (it doesn’t seem that long – a sure sign of aging) I had to learn some new words. Or rather, new meanings for existing words. Things like ‘jug’, ‘dairy (as in the shop down the street), ‘five-eighth’ , ‘bush’, all have different meanings to what […]
Continue readingL’Aquila: Why you should be interested in public understanding of science
Yesterday I was at a very interesting discussion on ‘Open Access Publishing’. This could be a blog post in itself, but I’ll keep this brief 1. Because Fabiana would be far better to do it, and 2. Because it’s really just a lead-in to what I want to say about the l’Aquila earthquake and the […]
Continue readingExperimental physics is easy on paper
Currently, down in the depths of C-building, there’s a master’s student trying to carry out the Stern-Gerlach experiment. (and also here). This is one of the classic experiments in quantum mechanics – specifically demonstrating the quantisation of angular momentum. If you look at the text books, it’s simple enough. Pass a beam of atoms through […]
Continue readingWhy you shouldn’t cite Wikipedia
I, like many other teachers, am fighting a losing battle with students over use of Wikipedia. Here’s a fun but deeply embarrassing example for the Asian Football Confederation that Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information. It shouldn’t be your first port of call for information.
Continue readingGoodbye to the kittycat
We had to say goodbye to Mizuna our cat at the vet’s last night. Despite the medication, change of diet and other ‘lifestyle’ changes, he had another urinary blockage yesterday. One can’t know, of course, if that would have been his last, but FLUTD can be a chronic and expensive condition and we didn’t want […]
Continue readingConsidering a new car?
I was directed to this article by a blog on the BBC website. It considers a full analysis of the through-life environmental cost of electric vehicles, compared to petrol and diesel vehicles. By full, it includes things like greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacture process, depletion of the world’s mineral resources, and eco-toxicity, as well […]
Continue readingPhysics is different for girls…
The Institute of Physics (in the UK) has just released this report looking at the uptake of the physics A-level (done in the final two years at secondary school) by girls. The report, titled ‘It’s different for girls‘ makes for some very interesting and perhaps dismal reading. While it’s a UK report, not a NZ, […]
Continue readingDistant galaxies and hobbits
I haven’t read ALL of Tolkien’s work, but I suspect space-travelling hobbits don’t feature anywhere. However, what do feature are hole-dwelling hobbits, and I had the fun of seeing their holes in the countryside near Matamata yesterday. The original set for Lord of the Rings was mostly removed after filming, and rebuilt for the filming […]
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