September 29, 2011 by Richard Sear
29
Sep
2011

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to steal ideas from many is research.

By Richard Sear

White cliffs of dover 09 2004The title of this post is a quote, of disputed origin. Its true. CERN is currently spending billions of euros and employing armies of supersmart people looking for the Higgs particle (as well as doing more fun and useful stuff too). The Higgs mechanism was stolen from condensed-matter physics by particle physicists, whose descendantsΒ are running CERN. There is no shame in stealing ideas from one area of physics and using them in another.

Continue reading »

Posted in Interesting Physics, Life in the Department | Comments Off
September 27, 2011 by Richard Sear
27
Sep
2011

Writing a PhD thesis takes longer than you think, one law of physics that cannot be broken

By Richard Sear

MortarboardAs I think I have said before on his blog, most science research is not done by middle-aged academics like me but by PhD students and postdocs (postdocs are typically people who have got their PhD within the last few years). We academics have so many things to do: teach, admin, meetings, more admin, etc, that we unfortunately can not spend as much time as we want on research.

Continue reading »

Posted in General, Life in the Department | Comments Off
September 24, 2011 by Richard Sear
24
Sep
2011

Precision is nice but oomph is the bomb

By Richard Sear

BombThis is the fun title of a chapter section in a book calledΒ The Cult of Statistical Significance, which is as entertaining as you would expect any book to be with both cult and statistics in the title. I have not read all of it but a lot of it seems like one long attack on p-values.

Continue reading »

Posted in General, Interesting Physics | Comments Off
September 21, 2011 by Richard Sear
21
Sep
2011

Feedback on Open Days

By Richard Sear

Today I ran the Physics bit of another University Open Day for prospective students. I think it went well. It ran smoothly as the earlier ones in July did (see my earlier post). They are quite rewarding to run as I think it is good to answer the questions of prospective students. I told one prospective student and parent about how first and insurance choices work, and if I can help even one student understand the system and make the right choice that is good.

Continue reading »

Posted in Life in the Department | Comments Off
September 18, 2011 by Richard Sear
18
Sep
2011

Seeing the Earth from above

By Richard Sear

First View of Earth from MoonThe image to the left is the first picture of Earth taken from the Moon. It was taken 45 years ago and nowΒ we are all used to seeing pictures of our home planet from space. Google maps gives you a satellite image of wherever you like, e.g., theΒ University campus, in seconds. Some of these images are just stunning, likeΒ this image of the Southern lights (the Southern hemisphere version of the Northern lights aka Aurora Borealis) taken from the International Space Station.

Continue reading »

Posted in General | Comments Off
September 16, 2011 by Jim Al-Khalili
16
Sep
2011

Celebrating Rutherford at the British Science Festival

By Jim Al-Khalili
Following Paul Stevenson’s blog yesterday about some of the interesting events at this year’s British Science Festival, I thought I would add some my own favourites. I should say that the whole week, the largest science festival in Europe, held this year in Bradford, has been a resounding success. The events organised by the Physics and Astronomy Section drew in the largest crowds of all (as usual), apart from the big evening lectures in the theatre in town given by the explorer Ranulph Fiennes and Lord Robert Winston.
Posted in General, Life in the Department | Comments Off
September 15, 2011 by Richard Sear
15
Sep
2011

Glowing cats!

By Richard Sear

Young Rhesus MacaqueOver the years, scientists have made quite a few animals glow green (when illuminated by blue/near UV light). See an earlier post for glowing fish. Marmosets, pigs, mice etc all have been made to glow. And now cats have joined the list, thanks to the work of Wongsrikeao and coworkers.Β See here for a picture of a glowing cat. Handy if you can’t find Molly at night.

Continue reading »

Posted in General, Interesting Physics | Comments Off
September 15, 2011 by Paul Stevenson
15
Sep
2011

Dark Matter in Bradford

By Paul Stevenson

WMAP probe
One of the fun things I get to do as part of my job is to be involved with the annual British Science Festival, getting involved in organising the physics and astronomy events. This year the festival is in Bradford, where I am now, and I sit outside composing this at a rather attractive new campus, sitting outside in the mid-September sun.
Continue reading »

Posted in Interesting Physics, Life in the Department | Comments Off
September 13, 2011 by Clare Harvey
13
Sep
2011

Physics up Kilimanjaro

By Clare Harvey

Having been back at work a month, holidays are now seeming like a long time to go.Β  This year I went to Tanzania and climbed Kilimanjaro (it’s always good to have a nice restful holiday to set yourself up for the next term).Β  I hadn’t really looked into this before I left, assuming it would be a little like the Inca Trail but a bit higher.Β  I had also been led to believe that this was the ‘easy’ route – it was a bit of a surprise to discover the morning we started that the ‘easy’ related to staying in huts rather than camping and this was actually the fastest ascent, and consequently the highest failure rate.

Continue reading »

Posted in General, Uncategorized | Comments Off
September 11, 2011 by Richard Sear
11
Sep
2011

Oil companies do understand that the world is getting warmer

By Richard Sear

Antarctic Sea Ice - Amundsen SeaYou might be tempted to think that some multinational oil companies think that the global warming is not occurring. Particularly if you read articles like this one in The Guardian. It covers the oil company ExxonMobil funding a climate-change-sceptic, who seems to make a living attacking the scientific consensus that our world is getting warmer. But there is one way in which global warming is very useful to oil companies like ExxonMobil.

Continue reading »

Posted in General | Comments Off