Mathematics
Playing With Light
Science, like a sport, is an art that’s well practised. To lose educates you more than to win instantly. Okay, that’s corny but I’ve found that my project failures have taught me more information and [more…]
Physics
Computing
How MRI Works
I guess quite a few of you will have had to undergo a Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan over the past few years. As you lie in the machine’s tube with headphones on to muffle the [more…]
Computing
The Pocket Calculator
Introduction Some of you may know that the Doc has been ill after falling off of a ladder. A very bad accident and I was lucky not to break anything (other than my confidence at [more…]
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…]
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…]
Physics
Three Gyroscopes – Part 2
Introduction The “flat earth” people like to disseminate their woeful ideas. Therefore, let us spend some little time to think about the earth that we all live upon. In particular its spherical (well, almost) shape [more…]
Physics
Three Gyroscopes – Part 1
Introduction I woke up one morning thinking, “I’ll write a few articles for GP about the gyroscope. How hard can that be?”. Hmm… Well it turns out that that was a really stupid idea. Are [more…]