In the last couple of weeks, I've been using Hermite Polynomials in my work. I won't go into what they are (look them up here if you like) suffice to say that they are one of many contributions to mathematics from Charles Hermite (1822-1901), who was himself one of many french mathematicians whose work has […]
Continue readingYear: 2014
Virtual labs: Are they virtually as good as real ones?
I've been reading a paper by Majorie Darrah and others (full reference below) on the use of 'virtual labs' in Undergraduate Physics. At Waikato (along with lots of other universities) our first year physics students carry out laboratory sessions to help them learn physics concepts and practical skills. If you are someone who has run […]
Continue readingArchimedes principle: think carefully
Benjamin has recently acquired a 'new' book from Grandma and Grandad: Mr Archimedes' Bath (by Pamela Allen – here's the amazon link – the reviews are as interesting as the content). The story-line is reasonable guessable from the title. Mr Achimedes puts water into his bath, gets in, and the water overflows. What's going on? […]
Continue readingHelp! There’s no equation to use
Today the University of Waikato is hosting a group of local secondary physics teachers. We've had an entertaining morning, with some sharing of ideas. As part of this, Rob Torrens, who teaches our large first-year engineering papers, talked a bit about life as a first-year engineering student. How does the school to university transition work? […]
Continue readingToddler does physics-art
As we all know, a scientifically-minded toddler plus a piece of technology can lead to unexpected results. This is the result of Benjamin playing with a retractable steel tape measure at the weekend. How we came to break the case apart I don't know, but the results are pretty (the cellphone shot in poor light […]
Continue readingRobot racing
The Engineering Design Show is currently in full swing here, with the competitions for the various design projects. The white-line followers kicked off proceedings. They were pretty impressive, with all but one team successfully being able to follow the (very squiggly) line without mistakes. There were traps to confuse the robots – the line got […]
Continue readingGetting the terminology correct
Yesterday I read a neat little report by one of our final year engineering students. As part of her final year project, she'd been looking at misconceptions in first-year students' thinking about electromagnetism. Learning about electric and magnetic fields isn't easy. For one thing, you can't actually see them. Therefore it's not at all obvious […]
Continue readingCircling line-following robots
A few weeks ago I commented on a task our second year software-engineering students are doing: building robots to follow a white line with the Lego 'Mindstorm' kit. It's been entertaining watching their various attempts and their design selections. Most groups have pretty-well optimized their robot now, and there's some final tweaking going on, ahead […]
Continue readingWhen energy conservation doesn’t add up (or does it?)
In the last few weeks holes have been popping up all over Cambridge. They are being dug by 'ditch-witches' – pieces of machinery designed for making small-diameter tunnels for cabling – as part of the installation of fibre-optic cables for the much vaunted ultra-fast broadband. A ditch-witch is about the ultimate in machinery-obsessed-toddler heaven. We've […]
Continue readingTelepathy breakthrough – great science, not science fiction
The 'Science' news hitting the media at the weekend was Guilio Ruffini and Alvaro Pascual-Leone's demonstration of 'telepathy'. There's been a lot of media coverage on this – for example the neat little interview of Ruffini on the BBC's 'Today' programme. Their article on this can be read here. It's not a long one, and, […]
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