We had our departmental Christmas lunch on Tuesday, outside in the campus grounds. We had some lovely sunshine, but the wind did rather spoil things. I've certainly got used now to living in a very wind-free place – a fresh breeze is something quite unsual here. We were hanging on to our paper plates, but […]
Continue readingYear: 2015
On the track at the Avantidrome
Yesterday I finally managed to achieve one of the things on my 'to do' list that's been sitting there for about a year – attend a 'Have a Go' session at the velodrome in Cambridge. For those that don't know it, it's New Zealand's new (which means about two years old) world-class velodrome and now […]
Continue readingIs dark matter really dark?
Last week I attended a seminar by Ian Hawthorn of our Maths Department. He talked about some work which he'd done with a couple of students, Matt Ussher and William Crump. The title is a bit of a mouthful "The physics of sp(2,R)" (what does that mean?) and I have to say that I didn't […]
Continue readingAnd the Nobel Prize in physics goes to…
…the United States of America, of course. Hamish Johnston, editor of physicsworld.com, has put together a neat little piece looking at where Nobel physics laureates start and end their days. There's no surprise on the net migration front – a huge flow from everywhere to the US. You can read Hamish's piece here. What the […]
Continue readingGender stereotyping and physics
The Institute of Physics (IOP) has recently released "Opening Doors: A guide to good practice in countering gender stereotyping in schools" (You can access the report here and read some commentary at a recent IOP conference here.) Although funded jointly by the Government Equalities Office (now I'm sure such a thing didn't exist when I lived […]
Continue readingFeedback, feedback and more feedback
I've recently received the final report from the Conference Organizing company that looked after the New Zealand Institute of Physics (NZIP) conference, back in July. The report includes such things as the final accounts, the breakdown of who attended, and feedback from participants. It's the feedback that is particularly interesting. When we attend an event, […]
Continue readingAttacked by an umbrella
We have a spring-loaded umbrella at home. The idea is that you press a button, and it automatically springs into shape – its shaft springs out and the canopy unfolds. I've often wondered about the wisdom of such a mechanism and thought what would happen if it went off in an inconvenient confined space, such […]
Continue readingGlobal Positioning Stupidity
I take back what I said last week about amazing vehicle management systems on milk tankers. Last night a GPS took a forty-two tonne tanker onto the three-tonne-rated Cambridge High Level Bridge, in what could have been a catastrophe. The bridge, with which I am very familiar, was designed for people, horses-and-carts, and the occasional […]
Continue readingHow do you measure the volume of beer in your bottle?
Someone has to do it. There are laws in NZ pertaining to how the stated volume of bottled liquids corresponds to their actual volume. If, for example, you are selling beer in 375 ml capacity bottles, you need to make sure that your bottling plant is working to the NZ definition of what 375 ml […]
Continue readingTanker physics
I'm currently at the Metrology Society of Australasia conference in beautiful Queenstown. For those that don't know, which might be most of you, metrology is the science of measurement. How do you measure things well? At this conference, we've got presentations on measuring temperature, pressure, liquid volume (a surprisingly tricky one this – if you […]
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