There’s a new TV series coming up very soon, made by Professor Brian Cox. It’s called “Wonders of the Solar System” and begins on BBC2 next Sunday, 7th March 2010, at 9 p.m. In it, Professor Cox ventures to some of the most extreme locations on Earth – including the tallest mountain, the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and the world’s driest desert – to paint a dazzling picture of a Solar System we are only now beginning to understand. Not to be missed!
Post script: there’s a children’s version of this series called “Space Hoppers”. It is being shown, also on BBC2, starting on Tuesday 9 March at 7:30 in the morning. More information here.
Today is the anniversary of the Queen’s accession to the throne and there was a 21-gun salute from Edinburgh Castle to mark the occasion. You can see part of last year’s taken by video on the castle on YouTube. I happened to be down on Princes Street today, and caught a couple of the shots on video. Physics students should be able explain why you see the smoke from the cannon before you hear the bang. If the speed of light is 300 thousand kilometres per second and the speed of sound in air is 340 metres per second, can you work out how far away I was from the cannon?
Here is my own argument for a solution for the Fermi Problem renewed in the previous post. Click on the thumbnails for each page of working… compare and contrast your own submission, perhaps.
We have winners of the competition, prizes will be presented period 2 Friday in my lab, M211.
I set a little Fermi Problem for students yesterday – with the promise of a prize for the best written argument which answers these questions.
I’ll be judging the entries tonight and deciding on prizes in time for the last day of term. I might even publish the best entries here, but meanwhile, you can read an earlier version of this exercise (which was a slightly different problem) here and my solution to it is here (click to see it full size):
This tutorial shows how to draw the ray diagrams for a convex lens for the three important cases: (i) an object placed further than 2x focal length from the lens, (ii) an object placed between 1x and 2x focal length from the lens and (iii) an object placed less than 1x focal length from the lens.
You will see how in each case, the image is (i) real and inverted, (ii) out of focus and (iii) virtual, upright and magnified.
Try to construct the diagrams yourself, remembering the three construction lines from the top of the object parallel to the optical axis, through the centre of the lens and through the focal point.
On Tuesday evening, I went with a number of other Physics teachers to the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh, for an evening of information and practical observing to help teachers thinking about putting on Astronomy events in their schools.
We were given a history of the telescope and links to some very useful and interesting resources, which I thought you’d like to share:
Heavens-above.com (type that carefully) provides detailed information for observing all kinds of things in the sky from the International Space Station, Iridium Flares and of course, stars, planets and galaxies
Stellarium is a free open-source planetarium for your computer (Mac, Linux or Windows) which shows a realistic sky for your location
Finally, as well as useful tips for a successful observing evening (a hat, a red light, thinking about safety were the main ones) we were given a book recommendation: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Astronomy.
My Advanced Highers will be joining some others on a visit to the ROE in November.
Our technical people have made us a great new resource: a tube which is drilled with tiny holes. When we push gas through the tube and light it, we get a long line of little flames. Now, when sound waves are pushed into the tube through a loudspeaker, the resulting pressure waves inside the tube produce visible sound waves in the flames. This is a Rubens Tube and it’s brilliant.
There are a lot of brilliant things going on at the moment, and here are two things coming up you really shouldn’t miss.
The first is a rare chance to see the demonstration lecture on Levitation using superconductors given by Professor Ludwig Schultz. Details from the St Andrews press release. Thursday 3rd September at 4.30 pm in Theatre D, Mathematics Building, North Haugh, St Andrews.
Second is the British Geological Survey’s Open Day on Saturday, 26th September 2009, where you can take a closer look at what the BGS does and enjoy seeing some of the exhibits, listen to talks and see the demonstrations in the home of Geology in Edinburgh. Saturday, 26th September 2009 in West Mains Road, Edinburgh.
Basking in the summer sun and the glory of the examination results, I am setting you a little personal task. The task is to consider, in the context of a problem, what knowledge is and how you know, what you know. There is a task sheet available for download here.
