There’s a lot to do while driving. Look at the road – watch the speedo (98 kmh – OK there), watch the road – look in mirrors – check fuel gauge (half – OK there) – watch road – watch that car at the intersection ahead – check temperature gauge (where it should be) – […]
Continue readingTag: electron
Small Transistors
How often do you get attracted to an article somewhere because of its outrageous headline, and then discover on reading the article that its headline, if not an outright lie, doesn’t quite represent what the article is actually about? This is one that got my attention earlier this week on physorg.com. The headline "Scientists build […]
Continue readingWaves in a plasma
This post follows from a comment I had yesterday from Robert McCormick on the www.sciblogs.co.nz version of PhysicsStop. (Unfortunately the mapping of PhysicsStop onto the sciblogs website doesn’t combine the comments – so if you read my blog through The University of Waikato website you won’t have got his comment, so I attach the link below) […]
Continue readingAnti-gravity
There are some lovely physics demonstrations that get repeatedly wheeled-out for things like Open Day and visits from school groups. Things like holding a spinning bike wheel on a rotating chair (flip it over and you start rotating – conservation of angular momentum) and levitating a piece of superconductor above a magnet at liquid nitrogen […]
Continue readingMonopoles, Dipoles, Quadrupoles and the like
The alternate stretching and squashing casued by a gravitational wave is an example of a quadrupole oscillation. This is another word that probably means very little to most readers, and, unless you like maths, Wikipedia isn’t going to help you, so I’ll explain. Let’s start with a monopole. You get a monopole when you put ‘stuff’ […]
Continue readingApproximately speaking
Physicists are notorious for making approximations. This character trait is the subject of many jokes – for example, one rather rambling one involving a physicist advising a punter on which horse to put his money ends with the line "Oh, didn’t I tell you – my calculations assumed a spherical horse rolling through a vacuum." […]
Continue readingThe reductionist physicist
So, I’ve now had my fifteen minutes of fame. I’m sure some of you will have read the article about my trip to Germany in The Waikato Times. I have to say that I was quite glad that the reporter (Annette Taylor) kindly left out a remark I made to her during the interview where […]
Continue readingAngels and Demons
For Dan Brown fans. Don’t worry, no-one is likely to blow up the world with antimatter.
Continue readingCompton scattering
While we are talking about relativity, what about evidence for special relativity? That’s the area of physics which talks about the way things move at very high speeds (close to the speed of light). For example, we talk about things contracting as they get faster (Lorentz contraction) and time slowing down (time dilation). Neither of […]
Continue readingThunderbolts and lightning, very very frightening
I guess we all have our own utterly irrational fears. One of mine is needles. It’s not that they hurt, because they don’t; rather it’s the concept that causes me to shudder at the prospect of a blood test. Sticking bits of metal into my body and sucking out the contents? I don’t think so. […]
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