Engineering
Three Gyroscopes – Part 4
Introduction As a child I loved playing about with magnets – I still do. They can move heavy objects – such as lifting cars at a scrap yard. They can also move light (-weight!) objects [more…]
Mathematics
Going Postal
Cipher – A Tribute To OldTrout
Introduction Cipher – meaning zero (0), nothing or an empty set. Decipher – to make something out of that seemingly meaningless nothing. Caroline or ‘Old Trout’ (as we affectionately remember her) was a brilliant mathematician. [more…]
Engineering
Three Gyroscopes – Part 3
Introduction In part one we looked at how a gyroscope seems to defy gravity. This is accomplished by angular momentum. We’ll come back to that later 🙂 In part two we looked at how a [more…]
Computing
Snowflakes
I have always loved snowflakes. On a chairlift, with your head down into a biting wind, one is allowed about twenty minutes to study them settling on your clothes. They have two classes of symmetry; [more…]
20th Century
‘Twas the Night before Christmas………..53 years ago
Placing the spacecraft in lunar orbit had not been easy. Compounding the difficulty, the engine firing, which would put the spacecraft in the right spot, had to happen while the spacecraft was out of contact [more…]
Human Interest
A Soulmate Mystery?
A soulmate is a person with whom one has a feeling of deep or natural affinity. This may involve similarity, love, romance, platonic relationships, comfort, intimacy, sexuality, sexual activity, spirituality, compatibility and trust. I recently came [more…]
Arts
“Caught & bowled!”
Ah Cricket – the wonderful sound of leather on willow followed by a cucumber sandwich and cup of tea.   Rather coldly defined on Wikipedia as “a bat and ball game played between two teams of [more…]
Mathematics
It’s all about the half time oranges!
I’ve often wondered whether there is a time in a football match that is the most likely point at which a goal might be scored.  Perhaps in the first few minutes when the goalie is [more…]
Computing
A Simple R6G Dye Laser – Part 3
If you’ve been following along (well done you!) then you might recall that we need a fast switch that works at a very high voltage for the laser’s pump lamp and, indeed, for the laser [more…]