My last comment on powering transport has prompted these thoughts: Will Google Earth one day become so packed full of data that you can ‘visit’ somewhere from your own living room and get 99% of the experience – thus doing away with expensive plane trips to exotic destinations? But will the demands on your computer system […]
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Here come the advertisers again
Buried in my junk mail this weekend was a catalogue containing all those gadgets that might come in handy once in a lifetime – you know the sort – solar powered tea strainers and personalised tin-openers – that kind of thing (I must get some to give out as Christmas presents…) One was a water-powered calculator. I haven’t seen […]
Continue readingThe unsolvable problem
In the last few days I’ve been wrestling with one of the unsolvable problems of physics, namely that it is impossible to measure something without changing it. Here’s an example. Suppose I want to measure the temperature of a pot of warm water. I can do it by putting a thermometer in it. Now, since […]
Continue readingBelow average
Here is an amusing little comment at the end of an otherwise depressing article about the dire state of our early childhood education: ‘Deputy principal Shevaun O’Brien said 19 of 36 of the school’s new entrants rated below average last year.’ (Kay Blundell and Rebecca Palmer, Dominion Post, retreived from stuff.co.nz today. Link to article here.) […]
Continue readingEquinox
Last Friday (for most parts of the world – Saturday for us ‘advanced’ people in New Zealand) was the equinox. Loosely described, that’s when the day and night are of equal length – from this moment on and for the next six months all us southern hemispherers will be experiencing longer periods of darkness than […]
Continue readingSteering problems again?
This one from Reuters has a familiar ring to it. Great to know that the world’s armed forces are in such control of their major assets.
Continue readingThe versatile physicist
Thinking back to last entry, I think the way the physicist thinks makes him (and I’m sorry but ‘him’ is still about 90% correct) quite versatile in terms of problems he can address. I’ve been exchanging emails recently with an economist, with a view to having him speak at cafe scientifique. What has economics got […]
Continue readingAnalogies
Semester has been going just over two weeks here at the University of Waikato, and I’m getting back into the swing of teaching after the summer break. One thing that struck me today, while thinking about my lectures, was how much I use analogies while teaching physics. That’s maybe not all that surprising, since physics […]
Continue readingDangerously good stuff
On the back of my Memphis Meltdown icecream: "Warning: Do not conduct aspects of nuclear physics or complex surgical procedures whilst consuming this product" You what? Just how is one meant to "conduct aspects of nuclear physics?" Is "Aspects of Nuclear Physics" some lesser-known composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart? I can see it now – […]
Continue readingBe afraid, be very afraid
I had dinner last night with a group of my wife’s friends – mostly health workers of one flavour or another. One explained how she is involved with developing strategies by which the health system can cope with the demographic time bomb – when in twenty years time a considerable proportion of the population will be […]
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