tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-65141777963292962992024-02-03T02:30:03.200+11:00What's a Physics?I asked a pre-schooler once, “Do you like Physics?” she replied “…What’s a Physics?” This is my attempt to try and explainAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-28589616401743505432019-03-18T19:02:00.000+11:002019-03-18T19:11:15.354+11:00A Physicist's guide to the International Year of the Periodic Table<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ernest Rutherford, a booming voiced Physicist once said “All science is either physics or stamp collecting.” He went on to win a Nobel Prize for...stamp collecting (chemistry). Chemistry has been called the central science, which is where physicists or biologists will claim a cool thing in chemistry as their own. So with that, let me share with you how physicists use the periodic table.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">2019 is the International year of the periodic table, which is great for the chemists, but it’s also really good news for the physicists too. The periodic table is a phenomenally useful tool used by chemists and memorised by school students. It still makes mainstream media when a new element is found, and so it should. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The periodic table is more than just a smart list of well arranged elements used by chemists. physicists are just as excited about this year and what the periodic table means to us! so in 2019, I've been asking some physicists what their favourite element is and their answers have been very interesting.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Astronomy</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a running joke in Astronomy that the universe is made of only three elements. Hydrogen (H, #1), Helium (He, #2) and the rest. Astronomers call these “heavy metals.” In some ways it is a bit silly and simplistic, but it also makes at least a bit of sense. The most abundant element in the universe is Hydrogen, followed by the second most abundant element, Helium. The first stars were Hydrogen and Helium, and stars are mostly made from these two elements. If you want to understand stars, you need to understand H and He.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: https://i.stack.imgur.com/W144r.png<br /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />Having said that, there are many astronomical processes that depend on other elements, like Lead (Pb, #82). A star is a machine for that “smashes” atomic nuclei together, and makes energy. It fuses elements together to make new elements. When that process can go no further that the stable element Lead, the process of nuclear fusion stops. This eliminates the outward pressure balancing the inward pull of gravity and it collapses, this is sometimes called a supernova, and it is spectacular. This event and other events like it, create unique and incredible conditions of energy and pressure that manage to make every other element in the periodic table. Incredible. You can’t have chemistry without Astronomy.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I asked Astronomer Professor, Tim Bedding what was his favourite element and he said Technetium (Tc, #43). Why? Because there are some processes that happen when a star enters a red giant phase (this is when it’s fusing mostly Helium, rather than Hydrogen) of its life, through transfers or neutrons in the star, it creates Technetium. So if we observe Technetium in a star, then we know that it is in its red giant phase. Professor Bedding's work is on Asteroseismology (starquakes), which is using information about stars to tell more about the exoplanets that orbit them.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Quantum physics</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Quantum physics is a fascinating area of physics that we’re spending a lot of time thinking about. It spans the gap between people that change physics and physics that changes people. From fundamental understanding of the natural world, to applications that will change how we interact with the natural world. When dealing with interactions of matter at such small scales, we really need to understand properties of some elements and components of elements, such as electrons.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I asked quantum physics researcher Professor Michael Biercuk why the quantum control group uses Ytterbium (Yb, #70) and Beryllium (Be, #4) in their research into quantum control, why they use those two elements. His response was: </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Because you want atoms that when singly ionized have a single valence electrons like Hydrogen and you want atoms with optical transitions that are accessible with commercial lasers.”</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In other words, electrons are really important in quantum physics and we need to be able to access them in a predictable way, using predictable technologies.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Superconductivity</b></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgatI6UxS9wdAkx6qC13EdYAncKpM88yUNbUvhUGaSnCVSdmHHkoLLvR8T2gt8lzx780m5wGGqA3eyuvEv2P3iav9mGV13kQazExf7gvIdl6Ntba4sU1nPqfF5oR3c4TZQW1gVbW1_74io/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-18+at+7.00.00+pm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1160" data-original-width="1160" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgatI6UxS9wdAkx6qC13EdYAncKpM88yUNbUvhUGaSnCVSdmHHkoLLvR8T2gt8lzx780m5wGGqA3eyuvEv2P3iav9mGV13kQazExf7gvIdl6Ntba4sU1nPqfF5oR3c4TZQW1gVbW1_74io/s200/Screen+Shot+2019-03-18+at+7.00.00+pm.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: Tom Gordon</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is an international race on at the moment to find the potentially revolutionary solutions to achieving room temperature superconductivity. Properties of superconductors include zero electrical resistance and perfect magnetism, ridiculously efficient computation, electricity storage & transport and revolutionary medical applications. One of the dirty little secrets in science is that we still don’t understand fully the physics of superconductivity. We do know a couple of things though:</span></span><br />
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<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">At extremely low temperatures, metals like Copper (Cu, #29) Niobium (Nb, #41) and Mercury (Hg, #80) are particularly useful superconductors.</span></span></li>
<li>At slightly higher temperatures, ceramics like Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide, YBa2Cu3O7, (Y, #39, Ba, #56, Cu, #29, O, #8) seem to work, but we aren’t exactly sure why. Most other ceramic superconductors seem to have Copper Oxides as their base. It’s got something to do with the structure of the crystals, but we’re not 100% sure</li>
<li>An exciting avenue for discovering new superconductors that operate at room temperatures, rather than at cryogenic temperatures is certainly in the structure of the materials we’re looking into. Perovskite, or calcium titanate (CaTiO3) (Ca, #20, Ti, #22, O, #8) is an interesting material that some people are getting very excited about.</li>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Optics</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Without fibre optics, you couldn’t download a movie – the data transfer rate would be too low across the network. Computers, communications, the internet and just about every part of our modern life depends on optics. The field of optics going through a very important period at the moment. We are pushing the limits of how much information we can send through an optical fibre. This is an issue as humans are increasing in number while also increasing the amount of information we’re sending to each other. For example there are about 300 hours of videos uploaded to YouTube every minute. To solve this problem of the data transfer rate being too low in fibre optic cables, we either need more higher capacity cables, at great expense, or develop techniques to use the existing cables more efficiently.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is where group 16 of the periodic table which is the group that contains Oxygen (O, #8) comes in. This group, called the Chalcogens is the basis of a lot of research into more efficient fibre optics with some very cool properties. A specific type of Chalcogenide glass which is a mic of Arsenic (As, #33) and Sulfur (S, #16) As2S3, has some pretty fantastic properties, like slowing light down and changing the frequency of light. Essentially, researchers are trying to do all the things that we can do with electrons and wires, but with light.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3LEBUDVPCnmeHuwhMzDfV6As0mT4jBQk5lnC7X7XAubYJcqt4pXbWWkz2suh9IkwSo_gaAxMK2EJYl_aiX7HtpCUwiJSMPVCBfp2HtQ47HDRbbxcsjy9osDULOP84yrE9S2TOBJC48b4/s1600/440px-Osmium_cluster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="404" data-original-width="440" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3LEBUDVPCnmeHuwhMzDfV6As0mT4jBQk5lnC7X7XAubYJcqt4pXbWWkz2suh9IkwSo_gaAxMK2EJYl_aiX7HtpCUwiJSMPVCBfp2HtQ47HDRbbxcsjy9osDULOP84yrE9S2TOBJC48b4/s200/440px-Osmium_cluster.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: Wikipedia</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I asked optical physicist Professor Martijn De Sterke what his favourite element is and he said it was Osmium (Os, #76):</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because of its density and he thought it would be cool to hold it in your hands. It is the element with the highest density (22 tons per m3), coming in at twice the density of lead. I’d love to feel it in my hands. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Medical Physics</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Medical physicists use the properties of a few elements such as Iodine (I, #53) and Strontium (Sr, #38) in order to create radiation for diagnosis and treatment of some conditions and diseases. For example, we’ll use beta emitters such as Strontium and fire them at a high density material like Lead (Pb, # 82). When we do that we create x-rays through a process called Bremsstrahlung Radiation, or braking radiation. Literally, slowing down electrons produces x-rays. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I asked Medical Physicist Professor Zdenka Kuncic and she said her favourite element was Technetium (Tc, #43) as it is used in medical physics research a lot as a tracer element which when injected into a patient's bloodstream helps with the imaging of some parts of the body. In addition, the half life of Technetium is very short so it doesn’t stay around in the body too long, so it’s relatively safe.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Let’s all party!</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The periodic table of the elements is one of the most recognisable and useful tools in science, and while we should be celebrating the chemists, as a physicist I’d really like to join in the party with the chemists and all scientists. It’s great to have a periodic reminder that scientists are collaborative and welcoming and love to share successes and knowledge. After all, that is in fact how science works.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYRvRBvc1CjPxI57cYViycUuHAh46cw7wqhpX3mp0Mm4e-OfYrDnvXNIv8bwKgQhm6CAKNSI7hXKRMpV2HABgbxZfLWLJ2MTTf_TVcP8nFZk9mB7N4UoWKJJvtsaP7K4D6ooJxaE7s1Co/s1600/Ruthenium_a_half_bar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1108" data-original-width="1600" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYRvRBvc1CjPxI57cYViycUuHAh46cw7wqhpX3mp0Mm4e-OfYrDnvXNIv8bwKgQhm6CAKNSI7hXKRMpV2HABgbxZfLWLJ2MTTf_TVcP8nFZk9mB7N4UoWKJJvtsaP7K4D6ooJxaE7s1Co/s200/Ruthenium_a_half_bar.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image: Wikipedia</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you’re wondering, my favourite element is Ruthenium (Ru, #44). My daughters favourite number is 44 and Ruthenium is element number 44. It’s atomic mass is 101.7, and my house number is 101. Also, my wife’s name is Ruth!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">What’s your favourite element?</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-8007120946935366702016-10-07T08:12:00.000+11:002016-10-07T08:12:55.928+11:00The three E'sI do Science Communication with the three E’s in mind:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDL3zHGrlPuBUhfZsj_q5cJ_SVYyjUqDPLc2X1wMhhYp5XpfSpfbTHqldWF_pAeCWKPG1klhxJ9wxcEIkJ-96cg0UofScp8vFpNw3ZtbYrkxXqQZ0ptt8G6Eie4Z9znaRRdMuBWf8LezI/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-03-02+at+12.15.15+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDL3zHGrlPuBUhfZsj_q5cJ_SVYyjUqDPLc2X1wMhhYp5XpfSpfbTHqldWF_pAeCWKPG1klhxJ9wxcEIkJ-96cg0UofScp8vFpNw3ZtbYrkxXqQZ0ptt8G6Eie4Z9znaRRdMuBWf8LezI/s200/Screen+Shot+2016-03-02+at+12.15.15+PM.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spectrum of a mercury discharge tube <br />with a home made spectroscope.<br />Photo Credit: Tom Gordon</td></tr>
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<ul>
<li>Engagement and the public awareness of science (PAS)</li>
<li>Education and the public understanding of science (PUS)</li>
<li>Enrolment and the public involvement of science (PIS)</li>
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Each approach has relevance and to be honest most of the time all three have a part to play in any communication of science. Kind of like when we throw a ball in the air as an example of Newton's first law, it’s actually an example of all three of Newton's laws, and more! The three E’s also apply to more than facts, they apply to Meta Science Communication1 and the scientific method as well. The skills of science like determining good and bad arguments, like understanding logical fallacies, like the ability to interpret graphs, and the discipline of staying with an argument.<br />
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Engagement is to wow an audience/group. It’s to hook them and show them the wonders of nature. Not to teach them, but to have them not afraid of the word Science, or to have warm fuzzy feelings when they remember the thing you showed them or talked to them about. As an example I love talking about Narwhals. I love to ask people why we need to believe in unicorns, when we have real life unicorns...real life aquatic unicorns! Or, we have put Robots on other planets! Facts like those bring a smile to my face, a smile that tells a story of someone who loves what he does, and wants to share it with others.<br />
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Education is to teach people about science formally or informally. We do this with facts. We learn things and we learn how to learn more things. The reason we teach people Science, is so they can apply what they have leant in order to do more science, or apply science and science understanding in their respective areas. Again, this can involved narratives and stories. There is a whole move in Science education towards SHE or Science a Human Endeavour. Where the objective is to find out what scientists do, who they are, why they do it etc. A human story.<br />
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Enrolment is to encourage people to find out more. It could be that they go and study a course at uni, or other place, it could be that they enrol in a MOOC, or read a book/blog listen to a science podcast, or just try and find out some more for themselves through other means.<br />
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This is mostly a joy, as a science communicator I get to talk to a lot of people who like to learn about science. I wouldn’t say this is preaching to the converted or tribalism. Most people do want to learn more, even people ‘on the inside’ I love to hear what others think, even from inside my field, there’s a chance I might learn something! And that excites me.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-87067501679077018862016-04-10T07:08:00.001+10:002016-04-10T07:08:02.166+10:00World Record Astronomy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last year, I organised a school community to do something amazing. I organised over 200 people to participate in and break a world record, do some fundraising for the school community, have a fun night out and do some astronomy! Amazing on all counts!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The event was a part of a world record attempt run by Dr Brad Tucker and the people at Mt Stromlo for the most people stargazing at one time across different locations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We smashed it by the way! A total of <a href="http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-people-stargazing-multiple-venues" target="_blank">7960 participants</a> . 114 of those contributed by me and the wonderful people of my kids’ school community! A small but very important contribution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This event was one of my highlights from last year and from that success, I’ve been asked to do it again, and I’m really considering it! The was so much happening on the night, we had dinner prepared by the Parent & Citizens to raise some money for the school, We had 2 lectures by our resident Scientist in School about astronomy & planets, we had a couple of episodes of COSMOS by Neil DeGrasse Tyson playing, we had a Starlab (a mobile planetarium) and of course the main event, a world record attempt at stargazing. To complete the night, a few families even stayed back on the school grounds and had a campout! Wonderful! It was a to to pack into a few hours and it was a lot of fun!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some highlights included:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Breaking the world record!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The parting of the clouds right when we needed to start our times world record attempt. The sky was very cloudy for the entire night but right 8:30 when the 10 minute viewing window was happening, the clouds parted to reveal the moon and a single star. I couldn’t place the star as there was no other star available to locate it, but it was pretty bright so it might have been Sirius.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The talks and the Starlab. Such a hit and a great intro into some really exciting astronomy.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Getting a call from an amateur astronomy group the day before asking if he could bring their 16” Dobsonian. My answer was yes, and Wow! It was a huge telescope!</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Getting to talk to over 200 students and parents for more than 3 hours about. astronomy, planets, stars, galaxies, the big bang etc. I love talking about this stuff, and on this occasion, and to this day, everyone wanted to join in.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After the event, I calculated that the viewing area of all the telescopes that we had on the night, was more than double the size of the Hubble Space Telescope</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The coolest part of the event though, was when I did the countdown to 8:30, our start time. I counted down from 10 and in between numbers 7 and 6, I thought to myself, "I've just organised for over 200 people to do something science-y that they would normally never do, all at once, ON PURPOSE!" Such a great moment. I could barely contain my excitement! I was like a little kid with a telescope looking up at the moon and the stars for the first time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Apart from smashing the world record, the stargazing night was a huge win for astronomy communication and science. People will remember this night for a long time, and a few of the students will remember the excitement when they’re about 15 and deciding which subjects they want to do in school. A huge number of students are now more comfortable talking about astronomy and still use their small telescope to look at the stars in their own time. For pure levels of engagement, I don’t think I’ve been a part of, or helped organise a more successful single science communication event. I encourage everyone to host a viewing night for a school, community, group of friends, local amateur astronomy society etc. A viewing night is a great example of astronomy communication at its best. If you need help, I can let you know more about how we did it. When you do run your own event, let me know, I’ll do what I can to join you!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am officially inviting and challenging everyone to break our world record. It’ll be really tough to do, but I’d love to see you try!</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-10651986040448819922016-03-16T16:54:00.001+11:002016-03-16T16:54:41.329+11:00STEMpunk podcast<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBT-mnZLBwbd8D6zsaENzEtOatD1YI4dpM8HdLQakXMjcjVn9939RFOVrOkQmpqWUqjeJNDfKat5852GTYB4TCeLKEcSJK3mrV0mnyZjl7Y26WsdFuKanWO2x5yRuYbeO_txOlh-Ixgo4/s1600/STEMpunk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBT-mnZLBwbd8D6zsaENzEtOatD1YI4dpM8HdLQakXMjcjVn9939RFOVrOkQmpqWUqjeJNDfKat5852GTYB4TCeLKEcSJK3mrV0mnyZjl7Y26WsdFuKanWO2x5yRuYbeO_txOlh-Ixgo4/s200/STEMpunk.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've started to make/produce a podcast as a science communication exercise. The podcast, <a href="http://stempunkpodcast.blogspot.com.au/" target="_blank">STEMpunk</a>, (nice name huh??) came out of a meeting with me, Christie Mcmonigal from UTS and Shane Hengst from UNSW.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Science week 2015, we sat down for a lunch and I asked what can we do together? I basically wanted to firstly, pursue another way to communicate science, and secondly, to communicate science with other science communicators. Essentially, if we can't communicate science with other science communicators, then we might not be doing our jobs very well!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We've interviewed some pretty cool people so far and also have had some interesting discussions, and of course, because of the interesting contacts that we all have with our repsective roles, we'll have some very cool guests coming up soon.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can contact Christie, Shane and I through the <a href="http://stempunkpodcast.blogspot.com.au/" target="_blank">STEMpunk podcast</a> website, on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/STEMpunkpodcast/" target="_blank">facebook</a>, or <a href="https://twitter.com/stempunk3" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our podcast is on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/stempunk-podcast/id1073053979?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4" target="_blank">iTunes</a> and <a href="https://player.fm/podcasts/stempunk" target="_blank">PlayerFM</a> (Android)</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-39850328023396672702016-03-10T15:45:00.001+11:002016-03-15T14:54:08.197+11:00Candle timing experiment<div class="ss-top-of-page" style="margin-bottom: 3rem; padding-left: 3rem; padding-right: 3rem; padding-top: 4rem;">
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<span style="font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1AvlxvsM5U4SuGSqua40oCnFfMkiTGJRH4U4cqAvHuXU/viewform?c=0&w=1" target="_blank">A citizen science experiment using a birthday candle and a phone.</a></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was challenged to do some science communication with a candle. I wanted to try a simple citizen science project, so that everyone else can be a part of the experiment too! So I thought of how I can learn something about candles and citizen science, and now you can learn with me!</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The aims of this experiment are:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. To find how accurately we can measure time with drops of wax from a birthday candle. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. To try a collaborative citizen science and science communication project using online tools and mobile devices.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The thing I hope to learn, is if it is possible to run an experiment in this way. The thing I hope you learn, is something about candles, something about the scientific process, the fact that you can do a unique science experiment with everyday objects and a phone (seriously, as far as I can tell, no-one has done this before, perhaps there's a reason for that)! I also hope that you engage in the scientific process a little bit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once enough data has been collected, the results will be published and advertised here: </span><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/kickstart/&sa=D&ust=1457588335066000&usg=AFQjCNHNCVqGdeZnUNLgs6_ygx81GfwHYA" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/kickstart/</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"> There is a good amount of data we're collecting here, so hopefully we'll be able to find out something interesting together!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Candles have been used for timers in the past, but they were custom calibrated candles. The historical candle timers were designed to show a rough passage of time.</span></div>
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<a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_timekeeping_devices&sa=D&ust=1457588335067000&usg=AFQjCNH7IVUZKmyAOJg4ziTuoZIAls3T3Q" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_timekeeping_devices</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">What are we looking for in this experiment? Certainly not a new timing device, we have extremely accurate timing devices available. We will not discover a new accurate timing device to rival caesium clocks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">What we will do, is participate in an online science experiment. You can do this entire experiment on one device (phone, tablet etc), the measurement, the data entry and analysis! This shows off the simplicity of this experiment, and also the complexity of our mobile devices. We can do an entire science experiment on a phone!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">This experiment is for everyone, but has been designed for simplicity as well as with some obvious links to the "Working Scientifically" syllabus requirement in primary and high school science. Please feel free ot send it along to anyone you think might be interested.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">If this works, I'll be trying it again for sure!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Contact me if you have any questions or issues with the experiment</span></div>
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<a href="mailto:kickstartphysics@gmail.com" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">kickstartphysics@gmail.com</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Also, feel free to take a picture of your setup and tag me on instagram @kickstartphysics, or twitter @Gordeauz</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Enjoy!</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-27090847551489370192015-09-09T23:10:00.004+10:002015-09-09T23:24:58.598+10:00Is my observation right?Recently I ran and organised a couple of science communication events for students, community members and academics. At each of those events I had a telescope for either a cool photo op with a politician during science week, or a solar filter on it for observing the sun for a university open day. It was on for young and old!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.lolhappens.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/TelescopeFail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.lolhappens.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/TelescopeFail.jpg" height="260" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There are 2 places you can look in a telescope, this is not the right place!</td></tr>
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Hundreds of people walked past my telescope to see what was going on, and while the telescope was unattended, 9 out of 10 people looked down the barrel of the telescope, not in the very obvious eyepiece. At first I was annoyed. "Why don't these people know how to look through a telescope?" But then I got a bit sad. These people do not know how to look through a telescope. They've never directly observed the sun and seen a sunspot. They've never seen the moons craters, they've never interacted with the universe they live in this way.<br />
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By the way, I still love that moment when you show someone Saturn through a telescope and they firstly say a big" WOW!" then try to look in the mirror to find the sticker of Saturn I put there!<br />
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I don't mind if most people don't know what the suns life cycle is, or how the colour and temperature of stars are linked, or if anyone has seen, heard of or understands the H-R diagram or stellar spectra, that's ok. but I do think we should all know at least, which part of a telescope to look through. Sure it might not be obvious at first. But it should be known.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/HRDiagram.png/526px-HRDiagram.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/HRDiagram.png/526px-HRDiagram.png" width="175" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The H-R Diagram. <br />
It tells us about a stars life cycle</td></tr>
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While my telescope was being stored ready for its science week appearance with a politician, it had not moved its orientation, even though I know it had been used for a number of photo opportunities during the week. This indicated to me that people were so afraid of moving it and breaking it, that they didn't. Again, a huge lack in their knowledge of how a telescope works! Further, I have a great photo of a federal politician looking through the telescope in the daytime, indoors, pointing up at the roof, with the lens cap on, and using his closed eye! I would love the opportunity to go to Parliament and give a quick tutorial on how to use a simple amateur telescope.<br />
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If I present someone with microscope, I'm pretty sure they're not going to try and look up the lens the wrong way. So why did 9 out of 10 people look through the wrong part of a telescope? The answer is I think simple...No one has shown them. A major part of Science is observations, and if we can't get that right, or we have never been shown how to use simple instruments to help us with these observations, then we really need to try harder at science education.<br />
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While I was teacher I would often get the question during a student experiment, "Is my observation right?" A fascinating question! My answer was always, "It's your observation, you observed it, record what you saw." It seems as though our observation skills are very poor, and our understanding of equipment to assist in our observations is also poor.<br />
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I'm not blaming people for not knowing, but I am inspired to do more science education because of it. It has renewed my enthusiasm to share my passion for science. If I can be the one that shows as many people as possible how to use a telescope, and to not be afraid of it, and actually excited about it, then that'll make me happy! And if you don't know how to use a telescope, please ask me, I'd love to show you!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-49451240531542255912015-04-26T15:26:00.002+10:002015-04-26T15:26:30.355+10:00An Australian Space Policy<h3 style="color: #444444; font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 25px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-weight: normal; line-height: 21px;">Australia is a user of space. We consume it. We've done so for a very long time and we are very good at it. There are some people (myself included) that really think Australia should take a few steps beyond this relationship we have with space, the international space industry and space based technologies. We have a lot people working on space in Australia and we are renowned worldwide for our contributions and ingenuity.</span></h3>
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This blog post is what I think an Australian space plan should look like. It is taken from the <a href="http://www.futureparty.org.au/the_future_party_space_policy" target="_blank">Space Policy</a> I wrote for the <a href="http://www.futureparty.org.au/" target="_blank">Future Party</a>.</div>
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This plan has been developed to take the best ideas from the Australian Academy of Science (<a href="https://www.science.org.au/" style="color: #0da4d3; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Australian Academy of Science">AAS</a>) National Committee for Space Science (<a href="http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~ncss/" style="color: #0da4d3; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="National Committee for Space Science">NCSS</a>), who have studied it, and who know how best Australia can be a part of it.</div>
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The three main ideas are:<br />
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<li>Adopt expert recommendations of the Decadal Space Plan from the National Committee for Space Science.</li>
<li>Create an Australian Space Agency, ASTRA</li>
<li>The Woomera launch facility<br /></li>
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<b>1. The <a href="https://www.science.org.au/resources/2010-19-decadal-plan-australian-space-science" style="color: #0da4d3; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Decadal Plan">Decadal Plan</a> </b></div>
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The plan's vision is ‘Build Australia a long term, productive presence in Space via world-leading innovative space science and technology, strong education and outreach, and international collaborations’. The plan has 14 recommendations with five key imperatives in mind:</div>
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<img alt="Spooky Dish" src="http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~tomg/images/KSOR/2013/KSORpart2/spooky-dish1.jpg" style="border: none; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="300" /><div class="">
<em>The Parkes Radio Telescope<br />Photo Credit: Tom Gordon</em></div>
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<li>Enable Australia to develop a strong space industry, and offset the risks of depending primarily on foreign space capabilities.</li>
<li>Position Australians to solve major scientific and technological problems.</li>
<li>Actively nurture, coordinate, and manage Australia’s investment in space science.</li>
<li>Leverage increased public investment in space science.</li>
<li>Provide government, community and business with the information needed to guide investment in space science and technology.</li>
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The plan document outlines the importance and current status of space science in Australia, and the specific scientific goals of the Australian space science community the next decade and build on our strengths.</div>
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With a very large group of experts in their field of astronomy and space science, and a sizeable group of experts from industry and business. I would like Australia to be a place that is known for not only its innovation with existing space based technologies but also an innovator in the field and a provider of world class facilities and programs.</div>
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The decadal plan seeks to establish government, commercial, industry and public collaborations to better develop and strengthen our niche technologies in order to be a contributor to the international space industry. </div>
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There's even a cheeky reference to creating Australia's own space agency (like NASA) in the plan. I'd like to go that extra step and I'll come to that now.</div>
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<br /><strong>2. ASTRA: Australia’s Space Agency</strong></div>
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ASTRA (Australian Space Technology & Research Agency) will serve many purposes including:</div>
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<img alt="Spooky Dish" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Melbourne%2C_Australia_-_Flickr_-_NASA_Goddard_Photo_and_Video.jpg/320px-Melbourne%2C_Australia_-_Flickr_-_NASA_Goddard_Photo_and_Video.jpg" style="border: none; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="300" /><div class="">
<em>Australia from Space</em></div>
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<em>Photo Credit: NASA [<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0" style="color: #0da4d3; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">CC BY 2.0</a>], <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMelbourne%2C_Australia_-_Flickr_-_NASA_Goddard_Photo_and_Video.jpg" style="color: #0da4d3; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">via Wikimedia</a></em></div>
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<li>Developing a strong, internationally recognised, Australian space capability.</li>
<li>Create partnerships of Australian and international government and private stakeholders such as <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/" style="color: #0da4d3; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="National Aeronautics and Space Administration">NASA</a>, <a href="http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/" style="color: #0da4d3; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Canadian Space Agency">CSA</a>, <a href="http://www.esa.int/ESA" style="color: #0da4d3; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="European Space Agency">ESA</a>,<a href="http://global.jaxa.jp/" style="color: #0da4d3; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency">JAXA</a> and <a href="http://www.spacex.com/" style="color: #0da4d3; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_self" title="SpaceX">SpaceX</a> for example.</li>
<li>Provide strong economic, educational, government, and strategic benefits to Australia.</li>
<li>Provide structure for further research into space and space-based technologies.</li>
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Space provides exciting opportunities for humanity to advance itself. Technological development occurring in space research and related fields has already provided us with new technology in the fields of communication, transportation, energy, physics and biology as well as some amazing spin-offs from space-based technologies. Some of these technologies are used regularly by people all over the world.</div>
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I think that Australia has the potential to be a hub of space investment and technological development. To do so, however, would require Australia to make serious plans to invest in space research domestically and to attract investment from abroad. Establishing ASTRA will allow us to collaborate with the other major space agencies (and not major ones) around the world and start becoming a part if the conversation and benefit from those membership.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">3. Woomera Launch Facility</span></h3>
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Australia’s launch facility at Woomera in South Australia will once again become world leading, open to governments and commercial groups wanting to use the facility.</div>
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<img alt="Spooky Dish" src="http://homepage.powerup.com.au/~woomera/lc6a.jpg" style="border: none; height: auto; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" width="300" /><div class="">
<em>Launch Area 6. Woomera, South Australia</em></div>
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<em>Photo Credit: Max Ryan</em></div>
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The conditions are perfect for this redevelopment (images of the phoenix rising out of the ashes are invoked here!) due to recent technological developments in the space industry such as reusable launch vehicles that would benefit greatly from a vast area to land.</div>
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The Woomera Launch facility is a largely flat, featureless, quiet electromagnetic and vast terrain of 124 000 km2 the largest landlocked range in the world, approximately the size of England, which allows easier access for test object recovery (an important safety feature for launch activities). Rainfall is rare, and the climate is generally warm and dry. </div>
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The stable conditions virtually assure the ability to conduct year-round operations, with little downtime.</div>
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Although Woomera isn’t as close to the equator as some launch sites, (the issue being the further from the equator you are the more speed, or delta-v, you need to get to the right orbit) this is out weighed by the fact that a launch can almost be guaranteed and launch insurance considerations, time and costs will dramatically decrease.</div>
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The town of Woomera, meaning spear thrower, is perfect for redevelopment into a support community for the launch facility with heavy influence from Industry, instrumentation, education & research, technologies and services. You have heard of <a href="http://www.futureparty.org.au/5_australian_charter_city" style="color: #0da4d3; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" target="_self">charter cities</a>, well Woomera would be a perfect candidate for that!</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Conclusions</span></h3>
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Australia is currently a user of space and space based technologies. We have good relationships with countries that have big and exciting space plans and projects and we let them spend their money on those things. However, I think believe our chance and indeed our duty to become a formal member of that group has arrived. We too must spend our money, and of course reap the benefits of that investment into the future!</div>
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Technologies are moving so fast, and although we contribute to the efforts and have some world class researchers and industries here, there is a chance to gain some national benefits from actively contributing and supporting the international space industry with our resources, expertise, facilities and ingenuity.</div>
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With such an impressive number and quality of experts in their fields and in the space industry, it is imperative that we listen to them and trust their evidence backed advice and recommendations. This, together with some future thinking and planning, Australia’s place in the space industry will be worthwhile and beneficial.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-69001050421033138122014-12-01T06:27:00.001+11:002014-12-01T06:27:13.994+11:00EduTweetOz<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKj60lDn74FFvQ41J43G_gXFK0Zk1MyV3YLo7gPTY8dWLHg8epynskgIZG5pP3Cuqco-17VkYvZgNNQA4x2-LHhjCTfdQDHX-LGXd9b8Hgz6dodx6AsEhuSGW2U3wXVJPQijjePk5MVk/s1600/edutweetoz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpKj60lDn74FFvQ41J43G_gXFK0Zk1MyV3YLo7gPTY8dWLHg8epynskgIZG5pP3Cuqco-17VkYvZgNNQA4x2-LHhjCTfdQDHX-LGXd9b8Hgz6dodx6AsEhuSGW2U3wXVJPQijjePk5MVk/s1600/edutweetoz.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a>Last week I was the curator of the rotation twitter account, @EduTweetOz. <a href="http://edutweetoz.org/about/" target="_blank">Here's</a> more about them<br />
<br />
It was a very cool experience. I'm now very used to typing things in 140 characters, which is why this post will be so short!<br />
<br />
Anyway, wanna have a look at what I said, what we talked about??<br />
<br />
Here's the <a href="https://storify.com/edutweetoz/wow-lots-of-convo-with-tom-gordeauz-this-week?awesm=sfy.co_b01ux&utm_source=t.co&utm_content=storify-pingback&utm_campaign=&utm_medium=sfy.co-twitter" target="_blank">Storify</a> of my week.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-52276188372672932562014-10-20T12:30:00.002+11:002014-10-20T12:30:28.901+11:00The pendulum of science engagement swings back and forth<div class="p1">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxLYwoaMsJdhe64m4belybScvraRE7VAL7hyphenhyphenrRlifqCMYNEvRkv6qgJGN9Cv5Gujz1Kvccx5SySDFIOdHVVOR4wESm2AjWUE3xe8z8PHEOCpbrii6kUhqDz1EJtGIyFN7pYLAAKQ1roSs/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-20+at+11.57.05+am.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxLYwoaMsJdhe64m4belybScvraRE7VAL7hyphenhyphenrRlifqCMYNEvRkv6qgJGN9Cv5Gujz1Kvccx5SySDFIOdHVVOR4wESm2AjWUE3xe8z8PHEOCpbrii6kUhqDz1EJtGIyFN7pYLAAKQ1roSs/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-10-20+at+11.57.05+am.png" height="155" width="200" /></a>I saw <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/how-do-we-engage-young-people-in-science-20141017-1170vt.html" target="_blank">this article</a> in the Sydney Morning Herald and just had to have my say!</div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I disagree with the engaging students with the Miley Cyrus wrecking ball pendulum idea! In the same way that i disagree that the TV show <i>The Big Bang Theory</i> teaches science, It doesn't! At best it starts a discussion about science that includes more people. I would never use TBBT or wrecking ball to teach physics in class, but I would use it to talk about issues in science.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
My answer to how we make science engaging, is to do real science, and stay true to what that is. As soon as we water it down (or my most disliked version of that ’dumb it down’) we change what science is. We can not get people interested in science if we tell them what we think they want to hear and then change it once they are engaged.<br />
<br />
Students are smart, as soon as you start trying to teach them things using stuff that they think is cool, it is instantly, by definition, uncool and therefore even less engaging!</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
We do this in High school and it frustrates me so much. We give students band 6 in science, then when they get to uni, they think they are good at (hey, we gave them a band 6!!) but they figure out that science is very different to what they thought it was! No wonder they’re disengaged!</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
It’s the academic equivalent of asking a kid if they want ice-cream, then when they say yes, we give them a block of frozen cream (which is interesting, but in a different way).</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
We have to teach science to be what science is! Not an explosion filled, super entertaining bonanza…cos it isn’t that. Sometimes science is not fun. When an explosion happens in science, it is generally the wrong thing, in fact we spend a lot of time trying to stop or at least control explosions. Science is challenging, in the good way. People ask me all the time, is physics hard with all the maths? and my answer is Yes! it is, but it’s a lot harder without it!</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I’ve know some great teachers that are engaging their students by being passionate about something and sharing that with their students. One guy has doubled his year 11 science class size in 2 years and NONE of them have dropped for year 12, simply by teaching something that he really likes. By the way it’s a girls school, and he is getting them to rebuild a mini, and run a car show!</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
One of the best science experiments I saw from a student (a VERY disengaged year 9 student) was she asked her family/friends to do the learner driver exam and she compared the results of younger people with older people. It was an excellent project. Her conclusion was younger people are better drivers (they scored better on the test). This is where the learning happened, we discussed if you could make that conclusion from the data, which you can not. Not only did she learn something about the scientific process/variables/validity etc, but she also told me how she could do the experiment again to get better results! AMAZING! She didn’t go on to do Physics in year 11, but she certainly didn’t hate science after that! I would say that is a successful engagement!</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The other cool example is this year when I ran a ”How to be a physicist” session where the students DO science, another disengaged girl said to me in her best year 9 voice. “Thanks, I hated physics before this, but I don’t mind it so much, thanks.” I think you’ll agree, reluctant approval from a teenage student is amongst the highest praise one can be given!</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
What we should be trying to do is increase the number of people in our ‘club’ not by changing what we’re about, but by inviting others in. The wrecking ball is NOT about simple harmonic motion, so don’t pretend that it is. Like Craig Cormick says in the article, as fan-boys and fan-girls of science we are having a ball doing science, so lets share that excitement and engagement by doing it more, not by doing something else, calling it science and pretending to have fun!</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I agree, scientists can be elitist! But so can poetry professors, or politicians, or parents, or plumbers (enough alliteration there??) or anyone! (people!)<br />
<br />
If you're after songs that engage people with science, watch any of the clips by the band "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/OkGo" target="_blank">OK GO</a>"</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Lastly, the point of your article is lost when after the entire speel about scientists being elitist, the last paragraph points out the inaccuracies in the wrecking ball clip, in a very elitist way!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-14640180619839858712014-08-05T09:12:00.002+10:002014-08-05T09:12:29.743+10:00PhD justificationEver since I started working here at the University of Sydney School of Physics in 2011, I have wanted to contribute to my field. I replaced a guy who has a PhD, almost every office I walk past has at least 1 PhD in it, perhaps a few. I'm surrounded by people who's job it is to ask questions. Change one thing, then measure another. Predict, Observe, Explain, etc. I want to do that too! I don't just want to talk about what they do, I want to do it as well. To be able to talk to students, communicate science, with first hand experience.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/super/title.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/super/title.gif" height="90" width="200" /></a>My field is science communication and education, I have a teaching degree (...mostly) I have been a teacher and for over a decade I've been in the game of learning science and science communication. On arrival, I instantly wanted to become a part of the <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/science/physics/research/super/index.shtml" target="_blank">SUPER</a> group (Sydney University Physics Education Research group). Almost directly after that I was asked to justify the program I run called <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/science/outreach/kickstart/kickstart.shtml" target="_blank">Kickstart</a> on a number of different metrics, some harder than others to measure.<br />
<br />
We say things like, "Kickstart is one of the most successful flagship outreach program of its kind"...How do we know. What are students actually getting out of it? What do they learn, do they like it, Is it good for them, or the teachers?<br />
<br />
After a bit of reading and discussing, (some of which I hope to include here later) I came up with the three E's for evaluating Kickstart. This has turned out to be sort of the basis of my projects leading to wards a PhD.<br />
<br />
<b>The three E's:</b><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Engagement - public awareness of science (PAS)</li>
<li>Education - public understanding of science (PUS)</li>
<li>Enrolment - public involvement in science (PIS)</li>
</ul>
<br />
Engagement seems to be fairly well understood (I can tell you that students will like the kickstart program! They'll have warm-fuzzy feelings about physics after they leave the lab). Enrolment is <i>very</i> hard to measure, I've tried with a few surveys, (again, I'll write about these later). The second E, Education, is where I start!<br />
<br />
My justification for starting a research project such as this is to attempt at asking the questions about Kickstart that most people assume have been asked. Education fits very well into the SUPER group, being Physics education research.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-23778376776711815802014-07-31T15:18:00.001+10:002014-10-20T12:31:05.051+11:00How to do a PhDI've begun a journey...to get a PhD.<br />
<br />
The PhD project is being done with the Sydney University Physics Education research Group (SUPER group, hands down the best name for a research group if you ask me!) at the University of Sydney. My project will cover different aspects of physics and science education.<br />
<br />
This blog will be a sort of research journal, how I did it, what was I thinking, what's next, review of papers/conferences/meetings, data analysis etc. I don't know how any of this works, so I'll be figuring out as I go along. Whoever reads this...You're invited to come along with me!<br />
<br />
As with any PhD project, what is presented is only the culmination of all the hours and years put together in a single document. When I was a fresh first year, I remember handing in my very first philosophy assignment. An epic 2500 words essay on something very important like socks with holes in them.<br />
<blockquote>
<h5>
<i>
John Locke proposed a scenario regarding a favorite sock that develops a hole. He pondered whether the sock would still be the same after a patch was applied to the hole, and if it would be the same sock, would it still be the same sock after a second patch was applied, and a third, etc., until all of the material of the original sock has been replaced with patches - from Wikipedia.</i></h5>
</blockquote>
I remember handing over my masterpiece for which I toiled over, wiping the sweat from my forehead, I could barely walk due to the effor that this essay took, I was a shell of a student, I'd done it, my first university assignment! I was very proud. The lady at the admin counter handed me a receipt of submission and I held onto that thing very tightly, I wanted to say "When do I get notified that this paper will be published and in which well respected journal? I'll be in the refectory if the media need to contact me!"<br />
<br />
Next to me, was another student handing something in, but hers was a little bit different. just after my receipt was given I saw 3 entire hardcover books get slammed onto the counter, it made a huge <b>thwop</b> noise!! She looked beat! She simply said, theres three years of my life!" It was her PhD thesis. My jaw dropped. It didn't get any better when all she got for it was the same receipt from the admin lady. I instantly felt, the change in perspective that it almost made me dizzy! I still have no idea how she did that.<br />
<br />
I guess no-one can really tell me how they did it, I just have to get in and do it! I don't even know where to start, let alone how to complete and finish it! So I may as well just start! So to answer the question of how to start a PhD?...Like this!<br />
<br />
<b>Why!</b><br />
<br />
I was told once by someone finishing up his PhD in Astrophysics a couple of years ago, "You always have to remember why your doing a PhD." You'll forget it sometimes, and it'll seem a long way away, there'll be times when you want to give up, and times where you can't sleep cos you're so excited. But no matter what, you have to have in your mind why you are doing this, and getting to call yourself Doctor is not a good enough reason!<br />
<br />
My reason, I want to contribute to the area that I have chosen as my work. I work in science communication and Science education. I would like to say that I have made some form of technical, and academic contribution to that field. And that's basically it. I think the nitty gritty of this may change a bit over time but the basis of it will probably stay the same. This is of course a simplified justification and it goes deeper than that, but for now, it fits.<br />
<br />
So I guess here ends my first thoughts about it. There's plenty more to go.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-84291009435289106842014-07-23T15:53:00.000+10:002014-07-25T07:57:59.200+10:00This post, it's about space...and its about time as well!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZBaFM4GoC7KHUvr0jesKQf9x8YAtNizbsszOedf1jiXjUoAEyw-MUFZ3Wlelk_j4jUCSCzKHTQrNbCGNehvYa2MnUcW8cwcCs1iPAB_5VuZWzKoM_Yslm1OGQUy75eEjeLPPko1joK9Q/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-07-23+at+3.48.35+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZBaFM4GoC7KHUvr0jesKQf9x8YAtNizbsszOedf1jiXjUoAEyw-MUFZ3Wlelk_j4jUCSCzKHTQrNbCGNehvYa2MnUcW8cwcCs1iPAB_5VuZWzKoM_Yslm1OGQUy75eEjeLPPko1joK9Q/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-07-23+at+3.48.35+pm.png" height="200" width="188" /></a>Part of my job is to answer questions from High School science teachers, and I love it! These last questions came from a teacher and her year 11/12 students. I thought the questions were good and showed the great depth that some students are thinking at, and also the great interest in science. <br />
<br />
I hope I’ve given them justice. This stuff can get quite mind-warpy very quickly!<br />
<br />
<div class="p3">
<b>How do we know how many light-years away we are seeing - as in we have seen stars 13 million light-years away.</b></div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Redshift will tell us the velocity of galaxies away from us, then with a calculation as fundamental as c=f<span class="s1">λ we can approximate it’s distance. BUT…It’s not a simple as that…of course! There are effects due to our atmosphere, relativity, gravitational lensing, objects in the way, expansion of space etc that get in the way of accurate measurements. </span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">So, we have to <i>KNOW</i> the distance to a whole bunch of objects in order to compare that with others. There are a few ways to do this, either with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cepheid"><span class="s2">cepheid</span></a> variable stars, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar"><span class="s2">quasars</span></a></span>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar"><span class="s2">pulsars</span></a>, and parallax. There are a couple of satellites that are tackling the problem with parallax that are very interesting. </div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Have a look at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparcos"><span class="s2">Hipparcos</span></a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_(spacecraft)"><span class="s2">Gaia</span></a>. These two satellites are involved in Astrometry, a very interesting area in astronomy. Literally measuring the stars! The precision is amazing by the way. Gaia can detect a movement of a star of 10 microarcseconds, (or something like that) the equivalent of seeing the length that my hair grows in 10 minutes from a distance of 10 meters. The angle between the smallest division on a protractor is a degree, that’s made of 60 arc minutes, each one of those is 60 arc seconds, and then 10 1000ths of that!</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
With all of these methods, we can get some very accurate measurements. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<b>The text book states that when the universe was one second old it was at least 1 light-year across but wouldn't that mean it was expanding faster than the speed of light?</b></div>
<div class="p3">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="p1">
YEP! It’s called inflation, and it is not very well understood! We talk about it as if we know what happened, but we really don’t! (like when we talk about how we know what the universe is made of, when we really only know what 4% of it is made of!) The experiment <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BICEP2"><span class="s2">BICEP2</span></a> had a pretty close shave with the answer, but there is still some discussion, and of course we need to replicate the experiment.<br />
<br />
Due to the fact that we don't understand inflation, we need to observe it and measure it, once that has happened, we can then start to try and figure out some details. So in order to measure it, we've tried to measure the effects of what that period would've done to the gravitational environment. In short, we're searching for gravity waves</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p3">
<b>If the universe started to collapse - could you travel fast enough to escape and can you exist outside the universe?</b></div>
<div class="p3">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="p1">
No. The idea of existence outside of a universe is, with our current understanding, non-sensical. If the universe collapsed, so would everything in it. The physical space between galaxies, stars, planets, etc would also collapse. Think of the usual stars (dots) on a balloon. If you deflate a balloon, the balloon also shrinks, the stars don’t move independent of the balloon, and interestingly (and in line with the analogy) the dots also get smaller!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9LyissQgnF0nWL0P4ciudvR4pM-9_kR4JkKFYc_ysV0CnJrU4a5WhEG8VRuuyxK-6a28GFATGRDniY7dYieFPRE4FTRnMUKftgMsf4VQ4qOoF0lMO0SNZ8gaoIkycGlBBaNwHFYF3Fd4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-07-23+at+3.50.09+pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9LyissQgnF0nWL0P4ciudvR4pM-9_kR4JkKFYc_ysV0CnJrU4a5WhEG8VRuuyxK-6a28GFATGRDniY7dYieFPRE4FTRnMUKftgMsf4VQ4qOoF0lMO0SNZ8gaoIkycGlBBaNwHFYF3Fd4/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-07-23+at+3.50.09+pm.png" height="185" width="200" /></a></div>
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The idea of “outside" the universe is not defined in physics (like dividing by 0, you just can’t do it. The idea of putting things into 0 groups is a non-sensical idea!) Space and time break down, we have no way of describing that condition mathematically or physically.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-10510894221796170672014-07-02T23:45:00.000+10:002014-07-02T23:54:11.772+10:00Celebrity scientistsEarlier this year, I blogged about why scientists should not necessarily be treated like footballers. It's <a href="http://whatsaphysics.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/why-not-treat-scientists-like.html" target="_blank">here</a>. The basic argument is that scientists probably do not want to be treated like footballers.<br />
<br />
A similar conversation came up again in my twitter feed, this time from the SMH. "<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/australians-can-aspire-to-finer-role-models-20140701-zssdr.html" target="_blank">Australians can aspire to finer role models</a>." This article rose out of the recent media frenzy around a few stupid things being done by footballers. The questions raised is, Why is Todd Carney a household name and not Brian Schmidt, or Elizabeth Blackburn for example, great question!<br />
<br />
This falls nicely into the categories (following on) of name recognition and role models, and with a special request of ticker tape parades as a celebration of both!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://thenewdaily.com.au/image/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/mon_251113_drkarl3.jpg?w=740&h=385&zc=1&q=90&a=c" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://thenewdaily.com.au/image/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/mon_251113_drkarl3.jpg?w=740&h=385&zc=1&q=90&a=c" height="103" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our very own household name, celebrity<br />
role model scientist, Dr Karl. Apparently<br />
he gets stopped an average of 2 times <br />
per grocery shop for a question or autograph.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>Name recognition</b><br />
These days, when it comes to name recognition in the media cycle, I don't think that means much. Sure I can name the guy who wee'd into his own mouth now, but gimme two weeks or so and I'll have forgotten it. This works for the scientists as well. During their brief time, scientists could probably be named in households, but only for that brief time. To claim that Todd Carney is a household name and scientists aren't is quite simply not true. That's not how the media works.<br />
<br />
To be honest, I'm pretty sure scientists wouldn't want to be household names, if the criteria for being a household name was disgracing yourself and your family. Think of all the household names in the media cycle at the moment, Todd Carney, Rolf Harris, Andrew Coulson.<br />
<br />
There was a fantastic documentary series from the BBC called <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0Y6NPahlDE" target="_blank">Howard Goodall's Story of Music</a>. In it, the presenter, Howard Goodall, made the point that we know about artists like Beethoven and Chopin, Vivaldi and Wagner for a reason, they were brilliant and did something that no one else did. I think the same can be said for sportspeople like Maradonna or Michael Jordan, and scientists like Marie Curie, Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. Granted, John O'Sullivan, Brian Schmidt and Rosalind Franklin aren't household names, but Wi-Fi, Dark energy and DNA are!<br />
<br />
<b>Role Models</b><br />
The role of a role model I think is not understood by the role models very well. There are plenty of examples of poor role models that really should know better. The fact that people look up to you and therefore will listen to what you say and watch what you do, should inform some actions. Of course that isn't the case all the time. I think that if people can't handle that, they really shouldn't be role models anymore, and should get out of that position.<br />
<br />
A great sporting role model for me was John "Nobody" Eales. After a game of rugby for his country he'd hit the showers, get into a suit and go and delivery a keynote address at a dinner somewhere. Imagine some of the thugs that play football these days doing that!! Being a role model is a responsibility. People like Katie Perry must know that what they do is watched (and copied) by millions around the world.<br />
<br />
But due to the above argument about our short attention span for name recognition, even if todd Carney is a role model, how probably won't be for very long. Again, those that are, like (for me) my father, Dr Karl, ex-bosses of mine Pete Mascini and Rachel Dash to name a few, are still role models for me because they've done something different or brilliant etc.<br />
<br />
Having been a teacher, which is effectively a role model in many ways, I can tell you that my actions were heavily modified. I was aware that many actions were being watched and acted accordingly. I think that is responsible. Todd Carney must know he is a role model of sorts. People watch what he does because of who he is. No amount of drunkenness can remove that fact that people watch, are informed by, and in some cases, imitate what he does.<br />
<br />
As always, there are two sides to the story. We could do better at what we produce in the news and media cycle, we could choose our role models better, we could train them to be better role models. But we should also expect more of our media to provide us with news that is news, and not just shocking "entertainment." And we should certainly expect more from our role models. It is a responsibility to behave morally and correctly (whatever that is!) as a role model. Children look up to you. If you don't think children should witness you doing something...don't do it.<br />
<br />
<b>Ticker Tape parades</b><br />
I've never been to a ticker tape parade. I would probably never go to a ticker tape parade for a sportsperson, but probably would've been there for the Mercury and Apollo astronauts in their day. And I would certainly go to a similar science based celebration like a lecture by Brian Schmidt (and I'd still get chuffed when he remembers my name!). I still really love going to the Eureka Science prize award night, The Oscars for Science! That is a wonderful and huge and shameless pat ourselves on the back event for only us! I love it!<br />
<br />
I hope this hasn't gone into rant territory. I'm still happy to keep the conversation going, like I said in the previous post, there's more in it!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-39340088055510165212014-06-30T09:11:00.002+10:002014-06-30T09:11:21.105+10:00Just like a real scientist!<header class="entry-header" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: url(http://s0.wp.com/wp-content/themes/pub/splendio/images/post-head-bkg.png); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; margin: 0px;"><h2 style="border: 0px; clear: both; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0.4em; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.5em;">By Renee Webster </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.5em;">@renee</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.5em;">we</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.5em;">bs</span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.5em;">Well, the solstice has passed, we’re almost halfway through the year and here at RSHQ the puns ain’t getting any better (sorry not sorry). Thankfully, Real Scientists is only a little bit about indulging the terrible senses of humour of the admins, and mostly about the awesome work that real scientists like this week’s curator Tom Gordon are doing every single day.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.429em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Tom gave us a brilliant run down of the Sydney University outreach program <a href="http://sydney.edu.au/science/outreach/kickstart/kickstart.shtml" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; color: #ec8500; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Kickstart</a>, which he runs not only at the university, but all over New South Wales. Kickstart allows physics students to participate in experiments that might not be possible in a high school setting, and gives students a taste of university life and laboratories while still in high school. Tom sees an incredible 25 % of all NSW Higher School Certificate students through this excellent program. He also shared with us several pictures of the Kickstart experiments:<br /> </div>
<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_1939" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 1.5em; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 310px;">
<a href="https://realscientists.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/tg3.jpg" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; color: #ec8500; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="A cathode ray tube, something that’s quickly become closer to a museum specimen than an ever day item students can relate to." class="size-medium wp-image-1939" height="225" src="http://realscientists.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/tg3.jpg?w=300&h=225" style="border: 4px solid rgb(217, 216, 187); display: block; height: auto; margin: 3.71875px auto 0px; max-width: 98%; padding: 0.071em;" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="border: 0px; color: #888888; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.2rem; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0.8075em; margin-top: 0.8075em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
A cathode ray tube, something that’s quickly become closer to a museum specimen than an every day item students can relate to.</div>
</div>
<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_1937" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 1.5em; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 310px;">
<a href="https://realscientists.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/tg1.jpg" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; color: #ec8500; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="is it an insulator? is it a metal? No! It's a semiconductor!" class="size-medium wp-image-1937" height="225" src="http://realscientists.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/tg1.jpg?w=300&h=225" style="border: 4px solid rgb(217, 216, 187); display: block; height: auto; margin: 3.71875px auto 0px; max-width: 98%; padding: 0.071em;" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="border: 0px; color: #888888; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.2rem; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0.8075em; margin-top: 0.8075em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
is it an insulator? is it a metal? No! It’s a semiconductor!</div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.429em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Like a number of other previous curators, Tom took to the airwaves during his time at Real Scientists on ABC Radio Dubbo.</div>
<div class="wp-caption alignnone" id="attachment_1938" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 1.5em; max-width: 100%; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 310px;">
<a href="https://realscientists.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/tg2.jpg" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; color: #ec8500; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="@Gordeauz for all (well 2) of your senses - twitter in your eyes and radio in your ears." class="size-medium wp-image-1938" height="225" src="http://realscientists.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/tg2.jpg?w=300&h=225" style="border: 4px solid rgb(217, 216, 187); display: block; height: auto; margin: 3.71875px auto 0px; max-width: 98%; padding: 0.071em;" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="border: 0px; color: #888888; font-family: inherit; font-size: 1.2rem; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0.8075em; margin-top: 0.8075em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;">
@Gordeauz for all (well 2) of your senses – twitter in your eyes and radio in your ears.</div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.429em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Tom also ran us through his career highlights, from the <a href="http://www.questacon.edu.au/outreach/programs/science-circus" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; color: #ec8500; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Questacon Science Circus</a> to behaviour of algae on the Vomit Comet.</div>
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An ongoing theme throughout Tom’s week was physics education, and ways we can get students to engage with, and continue studies in physics – including using games in science education. Tom’s even doing a PhD on this so it will be interesting to see how his research in this area progresses.</div>
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You can continue to follow Tom’s adventures in physics and science communication on Twitter, where he is @gordeauz.</div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 1.429em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
We’re trying something new this week, since Storify has been giving us a <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: line-through; vertical-align: baseline;">little bit</span> giant coprolites of trouble. To catch up on Tom’s tweets from this week, <a href="https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=from%3Arealscientists%20since%3A2014-06-22%20until%3A2014-06-29&src=typd" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; color: #ec8500; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">click here</a> to see the whole week’s worth of content on the Twitter website. If you have thoughts (proton-like or electron-like) on this new way of collecting each curator’s tweets, please let us know in the comments here, on our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RealScientists" sl-processed="1" style="border: 0px; color: #ec8500; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook page</a> or on Twitter.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-74038442169469830322014-03-21T11:57:00.001+11:002014-03-31T21:22:37.765+11:00Preaching to the convertedI've been at a few events recently where the sub-theme was pretty clearly "Preach to the converted" Intentional or not, that's what it seemed to be. Even if trying to avoid that sub-theme, it's still there. A few conferences come to mind, as well as a very successful event called IFLScience live.<br />
<br />
But Preaching and converted seem to have non-scientific feel about them, so perhaps we should science-ify this saying a bit. Scientists don't really preach. I'd say instead of preaching, we present and review results and collaborate. And we don't call our colleagues converted, we call them peers. So instead of preaching to the converted, it really should be called a process of peer review...<br />
<blockquote>
<h5>
<i>Hang on...Isn't that exactly what Science is???</i></h5>
</blockquote>
This process can be seen by some as a bit exclusive or elitist by some but, these are conferences and all conferences are like that, and not just the science ones. It would be a bit silly to invite everyone for the sake of saying everyone is invited. The most recent conference I was at where the vibe felt very self congratulatory was the Australian Science Communicators conference in Brisbane in February this year. And I don't think this is a bad thing. It's good to congratulate ourselves!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/files/events/IFLS-Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/files/events/IFLS-Logo.jpg" height="200" width="164" /></a>What we really should be doing is just including a bigger set of people into our peer group, that's it, just assume that more people are in our peer group! Marketers do this very well. IFLS is about to have this chance to assume that people watching it are your peers when it goes on TV. If we do that, they will become our peers, then they can come to our conferences, get our jokes and be elite like us in the in crowd!<br />
<br />
I see program like The Big Bang Theory and others reach out to a science audience, but also to non-science audience, in a way that hasn't been done before. People who laugh at that show (for whatever reason) are now our peers. We can now talk science things with people who would have normally said, "<i>Oh I was never very good at school</i>"and used words like boffin.<br />
<br />
For want of a better term, preaching to the converted has its place in what we do. It keeps us thinking about what we do, it makes us feel like we are making a difference (which is important), it allows us to network and catch up with old and new friends (also important) and if done right, will increase the number of converted.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-56650198950742854262014-03-19T22:27:00.000+11:002014-03-19T22:37:49.579+11:00Undeniably factI'll start this post out as a bit of a response to the article titled "<a href="http://theconversation.com/facts-wont-beat-the-climate-deniers-using-their-tactics-will-24074" target="_blank">Facts won't beat the climate deniers - Using their tactics will</a>," posted in <i>The Conversation</i> on March 13, 2014 by Dr Rod Lamberts from the Centre for Public Awareness of Science (my old stomping ground!), and we'll see where it takes me.<br />
<br />
I like the article, it was a good conversation starter for me. I like Dr Lamberts, he speaks his mind and it is a good mind, I hope he keeps speaking it! and I hope this response is taken is it was intended, as a continuation of the conversation.<br />
<br />
<b>First, a quick summary of the article from me.</b><br />
<br />
The facts we as scientists are using to combat the climate deniers are not getting through as we would accept them. We are presented with facts and we get it, they are presented with the same facts and they don't (I'm paraphrasing). Added to that, tactics of opinions and anti-science <i>are </i>getting through. Instead of more facts (the equivalent of talking louder in a foreign country to get people to understand you!), we should be getting in peoples faces with our opinions and point of view. Action, not facts.<br />
<br />
This is pretty depressing quote from the article that hit me pretty hard<br />
<blockquote>
<h5>
<i>
We can decry climate deniers for their unfair, lowbrow tactics, but their tactics are getting them exactly what they want. Ours are not.</i></h5>
</blockquote>
<b>My response.</b><br />
<br />
I think Dr Lamberts has some good points, but I'd like to keep my optimists hat on for little bit longer. I agree with the point about action, Yes, action is what is needed, but it should be action based on facts. I hope this is what Dr Lamberts meant. I don't think we should be forgetting the facts. In fact contrary to what Dr Lamberts said, we should most certainly continue to use facts to inform our arguments. We should of course be loud and proud, we should be getting in peoples faces, but all based on fact. I'll refrain from pulling apart this quote "The fact is that the time for fact-based argument is over" in the same way the Tim Flannery's quote was pulled apart in the article.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dashburst.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ASuToiS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://dashburst.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ASuToiS.jpg" height="149" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I like this quote. I've used it <br />
before, cos it's a good'un. <br />
Credit: dashburst.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The fact is that facts are true (see Neil deGrasse Tyson quote), Opinions can be true too, but are not always. To ignore this in any argument is silly. Our facts are based on science, knowledge and the scientific process, which has worked pretty well for a few hundred years. I think instead of ignoring facts, we should not only rely on them more heavily, cos you can't deny facts, we should also lean on the process which we use to get those facts.<br />
<br />
Dr Lamberts says in his article "Forget the Moncktonites, disregard the Boltists, and snub the Abbottsians. Ignore them, step around them, or walk over them." Again, I agree, as their opinions do not aid in the discussion, but to continue to say the we should use their tactics, I disagree with. (granted it is of course hard to ignore the people who have been elected to make the laws, but it isn't impossible!)<br />
<br />
I'm a big advocate of aiming above the lowest common denominator, not at it or below it. Using <i>their</i> tactics is moving to their level that is not based on facts, and arguing without facts is worse, in my opinion, than arguing with facts. In a way, we could be mindfully ignorant of the things that some people just don't know. We could assume that there is a level of knowledge out there about climate change, this would effectively eliminate that discussion. Sure we'll lose some supporters along the way, but we'd also eliminate the need to argue silly points that we have argued many times. I guess this is the same as what Dr Lamberts is suggesting. Forget, disregard and snub!<br />
<br />
I think you'll find that our tactics are working. There are of course set backs, but this will always happen. Look at that spectacular <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBZwu5bAEdo" target="_blank">video from the Year 9 Newtown High students</a> that asked PM Abbott questions the other day as one example. Those are the people that in a few years will be representing us. We're in good hands if you ask me. These students are not unique either, there are many more with the same tenacity as these guys. There are even political parties that call for evidence based policy, and a high focus on STEM etc. The <a href="http://futureparty.org.au/" target="_blank">Future Party</a> and The Greens to mention a couple. I honestly don't think we are losing the battle, so we should therefore not change our tactics.<br />
<br />
Sure, let's get loud, and active, but also, let's not forget what we are loud about. We are here to solve a problem that science can solve, and science is based on facts, so lets use those facts that in the long run, will always prevail over opinions, in our argument. Instead of us using their tactics, let's force them to use ours, then we'll really see whose ahead in the debate!<br />
<br />
Action with facts. If only the word <i>Faction</i> didn't already mean something else, it would be perfect here!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-31362570679144885892014-02-16T21:26:00.002+11:002014-02-16T21:47:14.670+11:00Sleeping under a universe of starsI've been watching Grand designs recently, it's a great show. I love the way that the houses always go over budget, the time it takes to build a house is always under estimated and the smallest issues always become the most problematic and expensive to solve. Let alone the crazy projects people decide to undertake in order to have an interesting house. A small scrapyard in the middle of London, a 16th Century castle that is quite literally falling down, an underground house, a self build etc. Every episode has it's drama and therefore entertainment.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Parkes_Radio_Telescope_09.jpg/258px-Parkes_Radio_Telescope_09.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Parkes_Radio_Telescope_09.jpg/258px-Parkes_Radio_Telescope_09.jpg" height="200" width="184" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Parkes Radio Telescope, I could easily live <br />
in a modified version of this! Credit: CSIRO</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So of course, that makes me want to have my own Grand Designs project. One with a difference (aren't they all). I want to design and build a house that is also an observatory!<br />
<br />
I'd love to have a converted observatory, but those are mostly still being used as observatories or museums, or they are extremely remote. There are a few <a href="http://weburbanist.com/2012/07/08/watch-out-10-eerie-abandoned-observatories/" target="_blank">abandoned observatories</a> but again, not ideal locations.<br />
<br />
There are some places around that have <a href="http://archinspire.org/simple-modern-house-observatory-dome/" target="_blank">designed homes with added observatories</a>, and there are very many kit or <a href="http://www.skyandtelescope.com/howto/diy/3305651.html" target="_blank">DIY observatories</a> you can build for your own house. There are even <a href="http://www.cloudynights.com/classifieds/showproduct.php?product=44261" target="_blank">portable observatories</a>. But I want to go further than that. I want my house to be a live in observatory with two functions, a house and a scientific instrument.<br />
<br />
It'd be really cool to live in a house that used to be (or still is) an observatory. I could go to the dome and use the telescope at night, and when it isn't in use, it'd be a cool circular lounge room with a really interesting feature in the middle!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br />
<a href="http://st.houzz.com/simgs/1a51cbac006ce616_4-4079/modern-home-office.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://st.houzz.com/simgs/1a51cbac006ce616_4-4079/modern-home-office.jpg" height="320" width="209" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Observatory in the middle of a lounge room. <br />
Credit: houzz.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
An example of an excellent house would be a recreation of the radio telescope out at Parkes otherwise known as "The Dish." I've been in there a few times (even on the dish!) and the space inside The Dish would be perfect for a house, it even has a kitchen and sleeping areas anyway, because while observing, astronomers basically live there! I imagine a house like that would be similar to living in a lighthouse. Lots of stairs, cylinder type building, and also really cool!<br />
<br />
I think some of the observatories around the world are spectacular looking buildings and would be wonderful to recreate and live in.<br />
<br />
The list of pros about living in an observatory include: It's awesome, you have an observatory in your house, it's great for kids and learning about space, it's unique, you get heaps of nerd cred (very important). Compare that to the negligible amount of cons and you're on a winner.<br />
<br />
I think with a small amount of imagination a home could be built to honour the observatory, as well as function as one. Sure there would be unique challenges, but every week on Grand Designs there are unique challenges. An observatory house would not be simply a cool design for the design sake, it would be a design that has a purpose. A lot of cases on Grand Designs are all about "The personification of the builders identity in bricks and mortar," well an observatory house is that for me, it tells you who I am and what I'm about.<br />
<br />
They say that your house is your castle, I disagree. I think your house should be your observatory!<br />
<br />
So I guess I'll get to my design then send it off to Kevin McCloud at the BBC so he can have a look at my bespoke (drink!) and unique design to see what he says. Until it actually happens though, I guess my little tabletop dobsonian and regular house will have to do.<br />
<br />
Clear skies!<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-15599338300904379232014-01-31T22:23:00.000+11:002014-07-02T16:03:49.368+10:00Why not treat scientists like footballers? Because they're not footballers!<span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #292d33; line-height: 23.143783569335938px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I saw this from <a href="https://twitter.com/sciengage" target="_blank">@sciengage</a> in my twitter feed today and couldn't help myself but to add my opinion.</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #292d33; line-height: 23.143783569335938px; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Why not treat scientists like the highest paid footballers? They're doing a bit more than kicking balls around... </span><a href="http://bit.ly/1dbVmlF">bit.ly/1dbVmlF</a>"</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A nice article with some pretty good comments and discussion...But,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't think the argument is as simple as that. Should we should pay scientists more? or should we should treat scientists like celebrities? This is about equality, respect, trust, celebrity and effectiveness. In this post, i'll address each of those.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Equality</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course I agree with paying scientists more. First up though, I'd extend this to all academics and researchers from any field. Academics certainly do contribute to society and should be rewarded for doing so. Then, if it's contribution to society, then we should also include teachers, garbo's, police to list only three. A call for more money for scientists will not make the problem go away. Either footballers would still get paid too much and the issue will get passed onto other fields, or scientists get paid too much, and the situatino is switched.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Respect</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Granted, footballers are well respected amongst their fan base, but I certainly don't respect them when they abuse referees, hit their partners, drink too much an punch on... etc, no matter how much they get paid.</span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Trust</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If it is a questions of "Should we trust scientists more than footballers?" We already do! Here is a small piece of analysis of Australia's most trusted people from last year. For the full list, go to </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.readersdigest.com.au/australias-most-trusted-people-2013">http://www.readersdigest.com.au/australias-most-trusted-people-2013</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's the top 11 for you</span><br />
<div style="background-color: #eee9db; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">1. Charlie Teo, </span></strong><span style="font-size: small;">neurosurgeon</span></div>
<div style="background-color: #eee9db; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">2. Fiona Wood,</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> burns specialist</span></div>
<div style="background-color: #eee9db; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">3. Ian Frazer</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;">, immunologist and </span><span style="font-size: small;">cancer vaccine researcher</span></div>
<div style="background-color: #eee9db; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">4. Chris Riley,</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> founder of Youth </span><span style="font-size: small;">Off The Streets</span></div>
<div style="background-color: #eee9db; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">5. Ian Kiernan,</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> Clean Up </span><span style="font-size: small;">Australia founder</span></div>
<div style="background-color: #eee9db; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">6. Mary, </span></strong><span style="font-size: small;">Crown Princess </span><span style="font-size: small;">of Denmark</span></div>
<div style="background-color: #eee9db; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">7. Dick Smith,</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> entrepreneur</span></div>
<div style="background-color: #eee9db; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">8. Catherine Hamlin,</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">obstetrician and gynaecologist</span></div>
<div style="background-color: #eee9db; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">9. Harry Cooper, </span></strong><span style="font-size: small;">TV vet</span></div>
<div style="background-color: #eee9db; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">10. Hugh Jackman,</span></strong><span style="font-size: small;"> actor</span></div>
<div style="background-color: #eee9db; color: #111111; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
<strong><span style="font-size: small;">11. Karl Kruszelnicki, </span></strong><span style="font-size: small;">science </span><span style="font-size: small;">journalist</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first three at the on the list I would consider as academics. I'd also ad din #8, #9 and of course #11. No Sports people! The first appearance of a sports person in the list is Libby Tricket (Swimmer) at #18, the first footballer of any kind is Lucas Neill at #49 (The only other footballers in the list are Essendon coach James Hird and Union player Quade Cooper #59 & #71)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Celebrity</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are indeed some super celebrity scientists out there. Some of them I can think of off the top of my dome are Dr Karl, Carl Sagan, Brian Cox, David Attenborough, Robert Winston, Bill Nye, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Michio Kaku, Adam Spencer. Richard Dawkins, Laurence Krauss, Brian Schmidt. And that's enough for a football team!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do we really want to treat scientists like sportspeople anyway? I really don't think so. Spreading their image all over tabloids, fabricating stories about their personal lives, constantly hassling them for their opinions that have nothing to do with their field of research (and focussing only on that, not their amazing skill and work). I imagine that most scientists would probably prefer to be left alone to do their research, rather than be the focus of talkback radio shock jocks or papparazzi for example.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Scientists probably don't want that celebrity status, sure a bit of extra coin would be nice, but we could all use that!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Effectiveness</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We should certainly not take away the skill, hard work, training, commitment and sacrifice that sportspeople make as well. Could a scientist kick a football around with absolute precision? Probably not (watch Nerds FC!!)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Science is not exactly a spectator event. A thrilling computer simulation just wouldn't get as many ratings as a down to the wire sport contest. We are entertained by sports, a major part of it's popularity is entertainment. That is not the case for science. We do not do science for entertainment, we do it to advance knowledge and make sense of the natural world. They are different, just different, so I think it would be ineffective to simply expect to make scientists into celebrities.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Conclusion</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In principle I think the idea is good. Let's pay scientists more. Perhaps sportspeople do get paid too much, but the point is a little bit more complicated than that. In addition, I think the question should really be about if it's really a good move.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now That'll do from me, the cricket's on!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm happy to discuss this further. There's heaps more in it!</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-659839870227887772014-01-24T22:32:00.000+11:002014-01-24T22:46:33.904+11:00SN 2014J<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What a week for astronomy! Another example of why we should look up...even in London...on a cloudy night.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
I tell students I talk to all the time that science can be done by anyone, even them. Next time you're in a classroom and something is odd, or not expected, have a look at what could be happening, because in some cases, like the discovery of a new supernova, it could be new science.</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ben07_HCIAAHLT7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ben07_HCIAAHLT7.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Supernova 2014J. It'll get brighter over the next couple </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of weeks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Steve Fossey, an astronomer at the University College London was giving a quick 10 minute lesson to his students on the use of CCD cameras in astronomy, before the clouds in London rolled over. They pointed theirtelescope at the object M82, otherwise known as the cigar galaxy and saw something that "...didn't quite look right"</span><br />
<blockquote>
<h5>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>"One minute we're eating pizza then five minutes later we've helped to discover a supernova. I couldn't believe it," said student Tom Wright "It reminds me why I got interested in astronomy in the first place"</i></span></h5>
</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The more you look into this story the better it gets. I don't really want to report on all the things that have already been reported, but comment on the situation of students finding the Supernova, the unexpected circumstances and what to can mean for science, science education and awareness.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
There is that old adage that scientific discoveries or less commonly followed by the phrase "I knew it" and more by "That's odd." That is almost certainly not exactly true, we scientists know what we are doing (especially if you read grant proposals!!) but we do see some strange results from time to time. Some people call it the Eureka moment, some call it frustrating, some call it their lifes work.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
Hans Christian Oersted immediately came to mind when I heard about the teacher discovering a Supernova this week. Oersted, in 1820, was lecturing on electric current through a wire, noticed that a nearby compass deflected when the current was switched on and restored to its original position when the current was switched off, making a link between electricity and magnetism. We take it for granted now almost.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
I love the line "It reminded me why I got into astronomy in the first place. YES! Me too! It makes me want to go out right now and look up at the stars, but I can't because it's raining. Although that just makes me want to get a radio telescope!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
I hope this inspires a few people to one of a whole range of different things. </span><br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To consider science as a real living breathing thing that we are witnessing changing right now.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That Astronomy is really exciting. Seriously, if it wasn't Steve Fossey and his students, it could've been anyone who discovered it</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Get involved in amateur astronomy, get a telescope, join a club even just look up and try and familiarise yourself with the night sky.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Find out more and talk to others about Supernovae, or this event</span></li>
</ol>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This supernova is going to tell us a lot more than we already know about our universe and it is exciting to se it happen and see it talked about. I'm certainly going to keep my eyes open.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unfortunately for us in the southern hemisphere, we wont be able to see it, but keep your eyes out in the blogosphere and news for some spectacular pictures. We have already asked those in the north to take some snaps for us, they said they'll do their best! And if you get inspired enough and you want to know more (formally), contact your local astronomer. I know a few, I can put you in touch!</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-7394704319817757952014-01-17T20:46:00.002+11:002014-06-17T13:15:47.402+10:00Engagement vs education<blockquote style="background-color: white;" type="cite">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I recently sent out an email alert to my colleagues at the University of Sydney School of Physics as an update of what's happening outreach-wise over the holidays and coming up. Among the events and news, were these two items: </span></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white;" type="cite">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
<br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Astronomers collaborate with Artists to create a dance piece called AM I that is being premiered at the Sydney Festival. From all accounts, the show is extremely good! </span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Academics from the School of Physics made some comments about the HSC physics syllabus that is being criticised as 'too arty' and the Board of Studies published in the Sydney Morning Herald on January 4. It's an interesting and thought provoking read.</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white;" type="cite">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">So, am I allowed to smile at a physics bulletin which starts by advertising a dance piece generated in consultation with the physics department and then highlights an article which criticises the change of HSC physics from a mathematics to an 'arts' subject:)?</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></i></blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white;" type="cite">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
<br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I was a little bit surprised when a response was sent back to me about the update that read:</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white;" type="cite">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
<br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">I took the comment as a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun, but I also saw an opportunity to start a conversation. This is a conversation I've been thinking about a while and would like to begin writing more about. For me, this was a great way to start!</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></div>
</blockquote>
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<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
<br /><b style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">My response: </b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white;" type="cite">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
<br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">You are of course allowed to smile, and after you mentioned it, I smiled too! And thanks for the different perspective! </span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white;" type="cite">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
<br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Physics will never be an arts subject, Science and arts work in very different ways and there are of course interesting overlaps. I see a distinction however, in collaboration and education. the news of Astronomers working with artists is all about awareness and the article about HSC is about education. </span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Collaboration with the arts is in order to make people aware of the science, not understand the science. I see it as the ‘warm fuzzies.’ People who see that dance piece will walk away from it with a warm fuzzy feeling about astronomy and black holes to some degree, rather than being scared by the term. </span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Whereas the HSC is more than awareness, it’s about education and understanding. The audience and objectives are different. I would hope that a student in the HSC can describe with some depth, use some equations, interpret graphs, make observations around the concept of black holes etc, that is, use the scientific method learnt from the HSC. I would not expect them to be able to dance a black hole, nor would I expect someone who has seen the dance piece top describe a black hole in any depth from only seeing that presentation.</span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Have you seen a program called dance your PhD? This is similar concept. Apart from being a bit of fun, it is a communication exercise, not designed to educate, but for awareness. In a way, any media article for example are similar. They are designed for awareness have a similar point, even some radio and tv shows, science centres for example. There are also many examples that blur the lines between engagement and education (Like the program I run, </span><a href="http://sydney.edu.au/science/physics/schools_community/kickstart.shtml" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: arial, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Kickstart</a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">)</span><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">To go for an extreme comparison...I’m sure you’d be able to tell the difference between playing the game </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Operation</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">, and a medical degree! </span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white;" type="cite">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
<br /><b style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Now get involved </b><span style="background-color: transparent;"> </span></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="background-color: white;" type="cite">
<div style="word-wrap: break-word;">
<br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">What are your thoughts about public awareness of science vs public understanding if science. the next step is figuring out how to tackle public involvement in science, that is, getting people enrolled at uni, or TAFE, orin online courses, or reading science books or blogs etc. getting people to learn science themselves. </span></div>
</blockquote>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-18445841333028204732014-01-07T22:05:00.001+11:002014-01-08T06:43:01.870+11:00Problem solving<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://d1jqu7g1y74ds1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/kepler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://d1jqu7g1y74ds1.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/kepler.jpg" height="174" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kepler, and what it's looking at. Credit: NASA</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I recently learnt that sometime late last year, the Kepler telescope suffered a pretty huge failure. Two of its four gyroscope reaction wheels, the things that keep it pointing so precisely at that dark part of the sky, have stopped working. A spacecraft needs at least 3 gyroscopes (one in each dimension of x, y and z) for stability and in Keplers case, these needed to be very sensitive in order to collect data from a long way of tiny measurements of light intensity, stellar conditions and asteroseismology.<br />
<br />
Apparently on the telescope, there were two good gryos and two not so good ones. It was the not so good ones that failed, and we are left with two gyros left. But that still leaves the problem of on gyro down. The solution is to me a pure act of problem solving, and some great science and Physics to get to the solution.<br />
<br />
I love the fact that a seemingly mission terminating failure occurs, but instead of accepting the failure, the mission scientists etc have simple changed the mission lightly to continue observing with only two gryos and possibly even making to experiment better. This is pure brilliance nd I am very lucky that I get to work with some of the people that make this project a reality<br />
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The pressure that the photons from the Sun exert on Keplers solar panels in fact give it a small push (very small), but over time, this will put strain on what was determined to be two not so good gryos, and once that have stopped working (friction etc) the solar pressure on the solar panels will push the telescope out of alignment, No mater what you do, you can not keep Kepler pointing at that one spot with only two gyros.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/673xvariable_height/public/k2_explained_25nov_story_0.jpg?itok=U1wa7Cs9" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/673xvariable_height/public/k2_explained_25nov_story_0.jpg?itok=U1wa7Cs9" height="288" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit: NASA</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This solar pressure is a push, and if you break it down, a Gyroscope can be looked at as a push or a force too. So the idea is to use the solar pressure as a sort of third gyroscope on board the telescope. A brilliant idea, that makes me think that sort of backup plan has been though of all along. It also fills me with confidence that if another gyro goes, they've probably got a solution worked out for that too, if not, they'll certainly be tying to think of one now!<br />
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The exciting thing for me is that we'll now be able to look at 2 regions of space to find planets, potentially doubling the amount of planets to be found and gifting us with a comparison of two areas of space. In science we look for comparisons.<br />
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I love the fact that seemingly catastrophic failure has not only not been a failure, but cold keep on imaging and providing us with fantastic and meaningful results as well as potentially make the project better.<br />
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Scientists are problem solvers, this is what we're good at, it's why scientists are being employed all over the place ow and in some places that you wouldn't expect to see scientists. Financial institutions and the stock market for example. We have analytical brains and approach problems differently than lawyers for example. I'm not saying better, just different. This is a wonderful example of problem solving at it's best.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-1618931785734015232013-11-27T20:27:00.002+11:002014-01-07T22:13:49.505+11:00Promoting GravityIt's not news and I haven't seen it, but there was a movie released recently called Gravity. Great concept I guess, and from what I have heard, it's a suspense thriller, but hey, this isn't a review.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://theshake.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Gravity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://theshake.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Gravity.jpg" height="107" width="200" /></a>What caught my eye about this movie was the fact that there were some people (some of them in the movie, some of them not) on a press tour, doing interviews etc about the movie Gravity. The thing is in the lead up to the movie, when all these press interviews were happening...<br />
<br />
<b><i>I didn't know it was a movie!</i></b><br />
<br />
So for me, all I saw was a couple of people like Sandra Bullock and Brian Cox promoting what I could only guess was the concept of gravity. This is a brilliant idea.!I was, to be honest, a little bit disappointed when I heard that there was a movie, because it means George Clooney wasn't promoting science, he was promoting a movie that has little science in it.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
Nonetheless, what a completely brilliant idea. Let's get some movie stars promoting physical concepts and laws. We can continue with "Electromagnetism," "Latent Heat," The Bernoulli Effect," "Total Internal Reflection," Half-life Decay," "Newton's first." Then even move into other science disciplines like "Plate Tectonics," "Evolution", "Bonds...Ionic Bonds." I've even made a trailer for the upcoming blockbuster "Superconductors!"<br />
<br />
Some of those concepts really do sound like good movies that I'd watch. So I'm going to go and do it. I'm going to create movie trailers for different physics concepts and perhaps they'll get picked up by the big studios and turned into feature films, and then we will have film stars promoting Physics concepts!<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/2jTR8DClTvo" width="560"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
And here is my trailer for the movie Gravity.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/AfzjvJXsNEY" width="560"></iframe>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-33406332909407397852013-11-14T21:22:00.000+11:002013-11-14T21:23:28.115+11:00Science for poets part 1<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not much of a poet </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(I did Physics for a reason!)</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, but if I was, this is what my poetry would look like.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first one is from personal experience of a guy in the Army reserves who thought he was a bigshot. While doing pointless pushups, he asked what each of us do, all responses had something to do with being self-employed and utes, except mine. The line in the poem is verbatim. This little interaction is basically the moment I decided that I was not a good fit for the army.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Argument from silence is too often seen as Guilty until proven innocent. Think of the last time you heard on the news, "They were unavailable for comment" and the implication in that comment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The third one, Ad hominem, basically means an attack on the person, not the argument. I wanted that one to be a quickfire set of insults, as insults sometimes are. Whenever someone resorts to ad hominem in any argument, you have essentially won!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Argument from authority</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wasting time and taking too long.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An ignorant order to hurry up and wait.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Move a car from here to there,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the rain, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And back.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Your two thin strips of authority,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Watered down by the rain.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Your orders and not mine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm gonna walk away</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pushing the ground by an insignificant amount.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Immeasurably small use of orders.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Others working, driving, fixing</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The punishment for that,</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Gimme 20"</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Me I study Astrophysics...</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Huh, Whaddaya need an education for? </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gimme 50"</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Your two thin strips of authority</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">fortified by the walls</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Give you no right to pretend.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm walking away</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Argument from silence</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No comment! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But believe me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No comment? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Guilty!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not here,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">t</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">o say</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Therefore, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">h</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">eresay</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Silence, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you choose</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I win, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you lose</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Ad hominem</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bad smell, wet towels,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Too short, glass house</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sarcasm, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">experts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fuck you, that hurts</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Insane, nasty</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not least and not lastly</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Judgement, absurd</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stupid, bad word</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Irrelevant, what a hack</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Targetted personal attack </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pathetic, ultimatum</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's just ad homenim</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shut up, there's more</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ugly stick, incredible bore</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No legs, i</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">nsults</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">naive, your fault</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You're wrong, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">out of line</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Your stuff's not as good as mine</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Infantile, piece of crap</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deaf and blind, take that</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Loser, laymen</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's just ad homenim</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-24235858031431658412013-11-06T20:23:00.003+11:002013-11-06T20:29:27.421+11:00Do you believe in the god-particle?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today I was giving a presentation to some young students about Physics, and at the end I asked them if there were any questions. This is the ripper question I got:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<b>"Do you believe in the god-particle?"</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
Where do you start with a question like that? What an opportunity to talk about science! how deep do I go? do I start from scratch? did he really mean it like that? It floored me. I didn't expect it.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll deconstruct the question, then answer it.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Do you believe..."</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://cdn.dashburst.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ASuToiS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="149" src="http://cdn.dashburst.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/ASuToiS.jpg" width="200" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't believe in science. You can't do that. It's fact based on evidence, observation, theories and laws. It's like asking if you believe in the letter N? Neil deGrasse Tyson has a great quote (and a pretty funky vest) on this. "The good thing about science is that it's true, whether or not you believe in it"</span><a href="http://www.a3bs.com/imagelibrary/U49780HB/U49780HB_01_Higgs-Boson-Plush-Particle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Standard_Model_From_Fermi_Lab.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><br />
<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Standard_Model_From_Fermi_Lab.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Faith and science are very different things. Faith demands that you have to believe something for no logical reason, just because it is written or told to you. There is no questioning in faith, in fact questioning faith makes no sense, the answer to your questions will always end up as, "It just is.""Why?, cos it just is!" So when I'm asked a question about faith in a Physics context, it is a non-sensical question. Science, or in this case Physics, is a pursuit of knowledge through experimentation and questioning, making hypotheses and then changing them, if needed, based on evidence and research. There's nothing to believe in here, it's a process. I can believe that when I do the shopping there'll be some ripe bananas there, but I can't believe in the process of going shopping. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
I find that if you substitute the work think for believe, it makes my point clearer. "I think there'll be some ripe bananas at the shops," and "I think shopping" It doesn't make sense. "Do you believe in Physics?" is just as non-sensical as "Do you think Physics?"</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><a href="http://www.a3bs.com/imagelibrary/U49780HB/U49780HB_01_Higgs-Boson-Plush-Particle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://www.a3bs.com/imagelibrary/U49780HB/U49780HB_01_Higgs-Boson-Plush-Particle.jpg" width="200" /></span></a><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The god-particle</span></b></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
The Higgs boson has absolutely nothing to do with god, and everything to do with many, many intelligent and hard working scientist, experimentalists, theoreticians and all the others that work at the Large Hadron Collider. There are rumours that say that the name came from the fact that it explains everything and therefore creates the response "god-damn" (shortened to god) particle, but who knows if it is true or not. To me it doesn't matter. That isn't its name and no-one I know calls it that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
The Higgs boson was a missing piece in what is called the standard model in Physics. Sort of like the particle physicists version of the periodic table of the elements. It is a nice neat table and shows what goes where. Depending on the position of the fundamental particle in the table, gives it different properties etc. the fact that the Higgs particle was missing, didn't mean it was a complete mystery, we had a pretty good idea of where to look for the particle. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Standard_Model_From_Fermi_Lab.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="178" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Standard_Model_From_Fermi_Lab.jpg" width="200" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have now found a Higgs boson. Notice I said <i>a</i> Higgs boson, not <i>the</i> Higgs boson, there's a difference. If it is <i>the</i> Higgs boson, then we all give each other high-fives, cos we got it right. If it's <i>a </i>Higgs boson, then, again, we get to give each other high-fives, cos now we get to make new physics. No matter what it is, and we still don't know, (the latest is that there is "evidence to suggest..." that it's <i>the</i> standard model Higgs) is that physics is changing in front of our eyes, and I find that very exiting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
The Higgs boson is no longer something we think is there, we know it's there and we can show that with a silly amount of certainty. It is no longer theoretical. We have done many experiments and will continue to do more experiments to figure stuff out about the Higgs boson. Next year when the LHC is turned back on, it'll be cranked up to twice the energy that it previously was, there fore we'll probably see more Higgs bosons, more evidence, and hopefully some more new physics</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
So to answer the question, finally. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
No, I don't believe in the god-particle. I know there is a Higgs Boson.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
I'm not sure the student who asked the question was expecting the answer I gave hime (which I admit was a light hearted rant, but a rant nonetheless!), he probably just wanted to sound like he knew what he was talking about, or he was completely trolling me, or he was actually interested and he'll leave that question now with a netter understanding of the Higgs boson. Who knows. It did floor me though. I like the fact that I can answer This. I could have said yes (which I think is what he was after), I could have said no, which is what I meant, but instead I tried to communicate physics to him. I hope I did alright.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
tl;dr No</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17902404366455514947noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6514177796329296299.post-91840219249328024862013-11-01T21:53:00.000+11:002013-11-05T07:51:53.413+11:00Half-life cake<br />
The half-life cake is a bit of science that happens in most offices, staff rooms, boardrooms and committee meetings around the country. And probably a lot of social functions as well. It's beautiful bit of science often overlooked. At most, in the places I have worked, it's noted and laughed at but no more than that. I think the half life cake should be celebrated, this is my attempt to celebrate it. What better way to celebrate than with cake!<br />
<div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<a href="http://images.wikia.com/glee/images/9/9b/The-cake-is-a-lie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://images.wikia.com/glee/images/9/9b/The-cake-is-a-lie.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
</div>
<div>
<br />
When a cake is presented at a work function or event, it is generally cut up into eight pieces. An eighth of a cake is not too big of a piece and also not to small. Knowing full well that there are more than eight people to give some cake to, cakes are still only cut up into eight. This has always amused me!<br />
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And of course, those fairly sizeable pieces of cake go quite quickly. but only seven of them! The last one is always left over. Nobody wants to be the person to eat the last cake. there must be some unwritten rule that you can't eat the last bit of cake. But because there are some people who haven't had cake (or some that might want more), they'll cut it in half. You have to cut it in half, you can't go less than that, because you want as much cake as possible and you can't go more than half, that's greedy. So we are left with one sixteenth of the original cake left. Then another cake eater wants their slice, so they'll repeat the process. They're happy cos they have cake and they didn't finish the cake, and we have 1/32 of a cake left. A third person repeats this, and at this stage, the cake consumers are getting frustrated, their cake ration is diminishing, and the (depending on the cake) cake's structural integrity is being compromised.<br />
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What we are seeing is the decay of the cake over time. Each time period, half more of the cake has decayed into someone's mouth. Theoretically, and interestingly, if we were to keep at this, it would take avery long time to actually have no cake left, we would have to get down to a single molecule or atom of cake, (I forget which number in the periodic table cakium is...) before someone would have to eat the last bit.<br />
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In science we don't use this as a measure of how annoying it is to cut up really small bits of cake, we use this as a time measurement.I know that every time someone goes to grab some more of the last bit of cake, they'll cut it in half. leaving half left over. that means that in one time period, or iteration, the piece of cake has halved its size. So the next time someone goes for cake (the second iteration) it will be half that again, or one quarter it's original size. It'll be an eighth the original size after three iterations, a sixteenth after 4 etc...This time measurement is called the half-life.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisM5lQmaKwDTGWqReLBHvrpafCpLqnpdDZz1RNYRlLJe-XxMDUa7aIAmg9pha9Kc0OHS-gFu17AI3a2mwKYJbOiSzLroBhrHlRe5xr2D0as5_tFL3FII6ids9lXNJHKkmbklpzlOdPq-8/s1600/chart_1+(1).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisM5lQmaKwDTGWqReLBHvrpafCpLqnpdDZz1RNYRlLJe-XxMDUa7aIAmg9pha9Kc0OHS-gFu17AI3a2mwKYJbOiSzLroBhrHlRe5xr2D0as5_tFL3FII6ids9lXNJHKkmbklpzlOdPq-8/s320/chart_1+(1).png" width="320" /></a>Why is this useful? It's useful because as I said before, we would be here for a very long time in order to figure out how long takes for things to completely disappear. In fact with radioactivity it is impossible to figure that out, due to that fact that this process is not only almost infinite but completely random. So in order to make sense of how long a cake will last (which is an unanswerable question) we ask how long until one half of the cake has gone. That we can answer!<br />
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If each iteration of the cake decay was about 5 minutes, we would say that the half life (that is, the time it takes for half the cake to decay, is 5 minutes! Easy. You can even see that on the graph. If you go to the amount of cake of 0.5. You'll see that the corresponding value on the x-axis to that is 1 (where 1 iteration is equal to 5 minutes). I could even ask you how much cake will be left after 15 minutes? and you would say "according to your graph...0.125 of the original piece" This is a much better answer to the questions of how long will it take fort hat cake to go away. Much better to give a number as an answer rather than, "Forever." Some cakes will have much longer half lives than others. This will give us an indication of it's stability or rate of decay. A cake that decays very quickly is unstable.<br />
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Like cakes, elements are radioactive too, some elements decay faster than others, and some take thousands of years. Due to the fact that half-life decay os very predictable, even though when each part of the element will decay is completely random, we can make some very precise measurements of how old something is, based on the amount of radioactivity it has left. This'd almost be like judging how good a cake is based on how much of the last slice is left after a certain time.<br />
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So I have either inspired you to regard the cutting of the cake in a new way, impressed you with another place where great science can be found, and maybe even educating you a bit about half-life, or I have way too much time on my hands and think about this stuff too much. Either way, the cake, in this case, is not a lie.</div>
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