Marcus’s Posts

It’s cold out there

Having lived in Waikato for five years now, I’d forgotten what cold temperatures feel like. I’ve just got back from Christmas in the UK (explains lack of blog entries) where I was reminded what winter is like: dark and cold. Minus 9 feels pretty nasty, but, how cold is that really?  

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Going around in circles

If there’s one thing that is likely to promote disharmony amongst the physics community, its the use for the f-word. That’s ‘f’ as in ‘fugal’, as in centrifugal.  Now, part of me thinks I should reconsider before writing this entry, but I have recently read a particularly unhelpful  piece on the internet written by a […]

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In the sun

When you think of solar power, you probably think of solar panels on your roof, or those little solar cells on your calculator. But it doesn’t have tp be that high-tec. In concentrated solar power schemes, you simply find a large area of land in the middle of a sunny area (e.g Arizona, Spain, Australia…) […]

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Zzzzzz

One of the best and worst duties of a scientist is to go to international conferences. It’s one of the best duties because you get to go overseas at relatively little cost to yourself (in my immediate case Adelaide) and enjoy lots of freebies (such as hotel swimming pools, shiraz, expenses-paid meals, more free pens than […]

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Beam me up…

Instead of enduring hours sitting at airports and in aeroplanes (complete with passengers in front of you who recline their seats forty-eight milliseconds after the fasten seatbelts sign goes out, grrrr), wouldn’t it be nice if Star Trek transporter technology actually existed. Just step onto the pad, select your destination (better check it carefully first), […]

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Traffic

I visited a company in Auckland yesterday, which involved negotiating the famous Auckland traffic. Now, I have to say that arriving in Auckland after the rush hour proved a very smart move, and we cruised to our destination without any fuss, but it got me thinking about traffic flow and physics.

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Water, water everywhere

Yesterday a very politely written letter arrived at the department, addressed to the physicists. I was curious as to what it was, and read it carefully all the way to the word ‘homeopathy’, at which time I began preparing a space for it in the ‘cranky letter’ folder of my filing cabinet. I will spare you […]

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