Why do we do masses on springs?

This question arises from the 3rd year dynamics paper I’m teaching at the moment. How come in lectures we only ever cover simple examples of things (in the context of this paper, moving things), like a mass bouncing on a spring, rather than realistic examples, like a washing machine or aircraft engine. It’s a fair […]

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Apollo

And while I’m on the subject of the moon, I shouldn’t forget the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. For the record, the first landing was before my lifetime, but some later ones were not. (Not that I remember them).

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Who turned out the lights?

I feel it would be inexcusable to let a total eclipse of the sun pass without comment on a physics blog. This is especially true since I am one of the lucky people who have seen a total eclipse – in my case the 1999 eclipse that scythed across Europe. There will no doubt be millions […]

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Equation of time strikes again

Horrible…dark…mornings…..Can’t….get….out…of…bed……. It’s close to four weeks since the winter solstice (for us Southern Hemisphere types) and it’s already noticeable that the evenings are less dark that they were a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, we can’t say the same about the mornings.  This is the equation of time kicking into play again – the darkest morning […]

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Non-destructive testing

Our second semester of the year started on Monday, and I have begun teaching a course on dynamics of machines, for the first time. (That is, it’s the first time I have taught it). Although I’m familiar with a lot of the material, there are bits of the course that are new to me, as […]

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Back to Rotorua

Last Friday I skived off work (well, I took a day’s leave) – it was the last day of the break between our semesters and the last chance for a day off work for a while – and went luging again. But this comment doesn’t concern the luge, rather the sky swing which is located […]

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