I’m often asked what the difference is between science and engineering. Or, put another way, why did I find working in a ‘School of Engineering’ when I’m a physicist (i.e. a scientist) so difficult sometimes? (I now work in ‘Te Aka Matuatua – School of Science‘ at the University of Waikato.) The two disciplines blur […]
Continue readingAs 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 […]
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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 readingI’ve had my brother visiting from the UK, which has been a good excuse for doing some of the touristy things in the area. I wasn’t taken by the prospect of zorbing, but we did give blackwater rafting a go in the Ruakuri cave at Waitomo. I’ve always wanted a go at that – and […]
Continue readingI was directed to this article by a blog on the BBC website. It considers a full analysis of the through-life environmental cost of electric vehicles, compared to petrol and diesel vehicles. By full, it includes things like greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacture process, depletion of the world’s mineral resources, and eco-toxicity, as well […]
Continue readingIf you’re in New Zealand, you cannot have failed to be aware of the legal wranglings over the ownership of water. Who owns or has rights to the water in our rivers? The raising of this question is a not-so-subtle attempt from one half of the political spectrum to delay (or stop) the sale of […]
Continue readingMonday morning was one of those strange days where for some non-obvious reason there was far more traffic than normal. Maybe there had been an accident somewhere, or there was some event on, but, for whatever reason, it took nearly half an hour to crawl through the Hillcrest roundabouts. All that start-stop on the car […]
Continue readingActually, I’ve been thinking a bit more about the 200% efficient LED I described last time. Maybe it can be a solution to global warming after all. The LED converts heat to light. Now, if one were to direct the light upwards, through the atmosphere and into space, it would escape the earth. Sure, it […]
Continue readingIn recent years, science education has been taking note of the idea of ‘threshold concepts’. The idea came out of studies in how students learn economics by Erik Meyer and Ray Land, but has much wider application. We’ve done a bit of study in this at Waikato, particularly for electronics – see for example Jonathan […]
Continue readingOur neighbours have a dog – one of those small, yappy, pointless pooches with an excessive bark-to-weight ratio. It runs about their garden, keeping our cat out and gets very loud when I venture over to the compost bin. The neighbours’ garden is fortunately well-fenced, meaning the creature thankfully can’t invade our side. So, imagine […]
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