How long does it take you to load the dishwasher? Placing all those tricky-shaped objects in position to maintain the perfect balance between getting the maximum numbers of objects into the machine and placing them so that they clean optimally. Most likely, less time than it takes to load ours. This isn’t because it’s a […]
Continue readingMonth: June 2013
Woolly writing is a symptom of woolly thinking
People who think well, write well. Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches. David Ogilvy. There’s nothing like reading through and marking students’ exam scripts. Mostly it is terribly boring, but sometimes it is enlightening. One of the questions I asked on an exam this semester involved getting the students to […]
Continue readingQuantum mechanics: Reality is back
With an exam imminent, I’ve had a queue of students outside my door wanting help with their quantum mechanics. This semester, they’ve come across the Schrodinger equation and the wavefunction for the first time and, unsurprisingly, some are struggling to grasp it. "But what IS the wavefunction?", they say. "How do you derive the Schrodinger […]
Continue readingAn aliasing example
Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting the Measurement Standards Lab at Lower Hutt. We were talking about making measurements of electrical impedance. In practice, if you want a decent measurement, it’s rather less straightforward than whacking on a multimeter. It was interesting to have a look at their labs, including several New Zealand ‘standard’ […]
Continue readingThe causes of tidal waves (yeah, right)
Pseudoscience – the packaging of absolute gibberish in clever sounding scientific terms – is nothing new. Here’s an example my father-in-law has sent me, from the West Coast Times of 27 October 1869: Tidal Waves and their Causes. It’s a newspaper report of a lecture given in Melbourne on the causes of tsunami. I get […]
Continue reading