With reference to my previous entry, come to think of it, a seismograph is pretty well a mass on a spring. And a car suspension system isn’t much more glorified either.
Continue readingMonth: July 2009
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 […]
Continue readingThe electricity man cometh…
…and readeth the meter and giveth unto us a very large bill. (Well, the bill got sent by email, but that’s beside the point). Now, I knew it was going to be costly, what with using electricity to heat a house during a cold winter, but I wasn’t quite expecting the figure at the bottom […]
Continue readingThe reductionist physicist
So, I’ve now had my fifteen minutes of fame. I’m sure some of you will have read the article about my trip to Germany in The Waikato Times. I have to say that I was quite glad that the reporter (Annette Taylor) kindly left out a remark I made to her during the interview where […]
Continue readingApollo
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).
Continue readingWho 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 […]
Continue readingWeight, Newton and the cat
Last week we thought we’d have a go at weighing our cat. See how much weight he’s put on since we got him back in February. As you can imagine, this isn’t an easy process for a number of reasons, but we just about managed it. We put the kitchen scales on the floor, put […]
Continue readingEquation 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 […]
Continue readingNon-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 […]
Continue readingBack 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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