Happy Christmas

With Christmas approaching (you can tell from the rapidly deteriorating weather) it’s time to take some leave. Physics-stop will be a little quiet until January, when the LHC might have a bit more data and the swimming pool here might have warmed up a touch. I wish you all a very happy Christmas and wonderful […]

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Was that a Higgs I just saw?

Well, CERN was certainly twittering away last night, though, to be fair, I’m glad I didn’t stay up for the press conference. Some things are worth trading in your sleep for, such as an eclipse of the moon (occasionally) or other astronomical event, an Ashes test, a Royal Wedding (just about), but, I’m afraid, not […]

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Momentum conservation again

There are some fantastic examples of momentum conservation in everyday life. This week I was attacking the leftovers from a tree removal we had a couple of weeks ago – turning the chainsaw-cut rings the tree surgeons left us into something that could be shoved into the fire come winter time (assuming no bees are […]

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When is my result incorrect?

I’ve been talking today with a PhD student about some measurements he’s made in the lab. In physics, like all sciences, when we measure something we don’t just make one measurement, but we measure it several times. That way you get a more accurate result. Now, with most physical measurements, we expect there to be […]

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Physics and Engineering Education

I’ve been talking this afternoon with some colleagues from the Faculty of Education here. While FoE is probably best known for teaching school teachers, that’s not all they do. In my particular case, I’ve been interested in how you go about doing research in education – with specific regard here to physics and engineering. While […]

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