Here’s a thorny problem that no doubt every physics teacher has grappled with. In a space-station, orbiting the earth, are you weightless? There are at least two ways of answering this: 1. Yes, you are. Let’s face it, you float around inside the space-station, water forms large blobs, some plants don’t know which way up […]
Continue readingSo, last Thursday and Friday, we had a great demonstration of some rockets, thanks to Steve Chrystall. Some of our visiting school students had made water rockets, and these were launched across our sports field at lunch time. There were some pretty impressive entries (both in terms of distance travelled and blowing-up on the launch […]
Continue readingJust a quick entry since I haven’t done one this week. Since I got back from holiday (which was extended by a day by that pesky ash cloud) I’ve been busy marking exams and then helping with our major schools’ publicity event of the year, the Osborne Physics and Engineering Lectures. This year we’ve had […]
Continue readingYesterday I had a look around the Tate Modern art gallery in London. As is the way with modern art, there was the expected mix of fabulous, bizarre and seriously-stretching-the-definition-of-art exhibits. One of the pieces on show at present is a pile of porcelain ‘sunflower seeds’, by the artist Ai Weiwei. This piece of artwork is […]
Continue readingPerhaps the most difficult of the ‘big’ challenges facing modern engineering is designing a lightweight umbrella that doesn’t turn inside out with the slightest breath of wind. There you are, walking down a Portsmouth Street with your umbrella up, when a bus comes along and its wake is sufficient to rip the umbrella inside out. […]
Continue readingI guess a lot of you will have seen this video of the crash at JFK airport this week. It’s almost a perfect example of what I’ve recently covered in my dynamics class, concerning collisions that result in things spinning, because the forces don’t act through the centre of mass. So, in this example, the […]
Continue readingLast week I came face to face with another physics misconception with some of my students. I do think that, as I get more experienced teaching, I’m getting better at picking up on where students are having problems. But it’s a very difficult thing to do. Last week it was circular motion The students were looking at a fairly simple problem […]
Continue readinghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG7lGZqWFpM You may have seen a bed of nails demonstrated. You may even have done it yourself. I’ve laid on a bed of nails before (it’s not desperately comfortable but it doesn’t hurt) though what this video does is a bit beyond what I think I’d like to try. So why is it possible? It […]
Continue readingI am a bit concerned over the attitude of the kiwi guy interviewed on CloseUp tonight, as he prepares to defend his home in Cairns against Yasi in a house 4 metres above sea-level when a 5 metre storm surge is predicted. You do the maths. Let’s pray that destruction is just limited to things that […]
Continue readingThe warm sunny weather has led to a discovery under the front lawn. The clue was the fact that the ground was squelchy after three weeks with no rain. Either a new hot spring was in the process of popping up out of the lawn, or our water pipe had sprung a leak. It’s not […]
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