BIG idea physics

This morning I’ve been having a quick look through some documentation from The Ministry of Education on proposed changes to NCEA Level 1 Science. For those not familiar with the NZ secondary education system, a typical student would complete NCEA level 1 at the end of year 11.  In this regard, it’s broadly similiar to […]

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Hawking radiation in the lab

A highlight of the recent NZ Institute of Physics conference was the Dan Walls medal talk given by Matt Visser. Matt has been working on general relativity. That's not desparately unusual for a physicist, but Matt has been successful in working on some of the crazier aspects of relativity and getting it published – wormholes, […]

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Time travel

On Monday evening this week I managed to do a bit of time travelling while driving back home. I was driving back through one of those heavy showers that have been marauding around the place recently, with windscreen wipers full pelt on a rather wet road. However, these showers don’t last for very long, and […]

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Was that a Higgs I just saw?

Well, CERN was certainly twittering away last night, though, to be fair, I’m glad I didn’t stay up for the press conference. Some things are worth trading in your sleep for, such as an eclipse of the moon (occasionally) or other astronomical event, an Ashes test, a Royal Wedding (just about), but, I’m afraid, not […]

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The varied world of physics

It was a very interesting day at the NZ Institute of Physics conference. I learned about some of the physics experiments done at the South Pole, how to trap, observe and count atoms (and that high school physics teachers who tell their students that you can’t see atoms need to update their knowledge), some results […]

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