Filling Morecambe Bay with a bath tap

We found this claim at the Leighton Moss RSPB reserve. I have filled a 1.5 litre kettle in 10 seconds tonight using a bath tap. 20 million years is 6.3 x 10^14 seconds. That would mean 9.5 x 10^13 litres of water. There are 1000 litres in 1 cubic metre. This means 20 million years would be 9.5 x 10^10 cubic metres. On  my map, it seems to be 20km across Morecambe Bay from Barrow to Fleetwood. Let's say that Morecambe Bay is a 20km x 20km square which is 400 x 10^6 square metres. Hence in 20 million years, Morecambe Bay would be filled to a depth of 237 metres. That sounds unlikely. Suppose we said 2 metres depth - that would be 200 000 years. Still a long time.

Saddle Yoke: experiments with an electric fence

We went to Under Saddle Yoke near Moffat to find another marmot. We had to cross an electric fence below Saddle Yoke. Mrs B suggested testing the electric field with a compass. I was unable to get a shock from the wire but companions attested to the fact that it was live. The photo below shows the compass held a decent distance above the wire. It points correctly north and south.

Held close above the wire, it lines up with the wire.

 Same when held close below the wire.

Maxwell's Right Hand Grip Rule would suggest that the compass should be perpendicular to the wire and in opposite directions above as below. The lining up with the wire could be that the wire is ferro-magnetic and has induced magnetism from the compass, thus becoming an opposite poled magnet itself and attracting the needle.

Sundial at Bosworth

Like the sundial on Guernsey, this one casts its shadow over the historical events that happened at that particular hour. I have measured the angle of the gnomon and got 53 degrees. The angle should be the same as the latitude of the place. The nearby town of Market Bosworth has a latitude of 52.6 degrees!

Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain

The Bosworth battlefield is one of the most iconic places in Physics as a result of the mnemonic for remembering the colours of the visible spectrum: Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain. I liked the joke doing the rounds when the discovery of the remains of Richard the Third was announced: that physicists were renaming the colour violet as lilac so that it would read Richard Of York Got Buried In Leicester. The idea that there are actually seven colours is merely a convention. There are as many shades as you want. I read that Newton chose seven because the number had religious significance for him.

Y Boulder and finding a marmot

We went looking for one of Trail Magazine's Marv the Marmot mascots as part of their Everest Anywhere campaign. http://www.livefortheoutdoors.com/everestanywhere/ We found it hidden at the Y Boulder in Mosedale near Wasdale Head. I'd never heard of this remarkable rock but it is a named feature on the OS map. So how did it end up with a Y shaped crack in it? At first I thought it must be a glacial erratic. Mosedale is a classic hanging valley carved out by a tributary glacier. It is U-shaped in section and there is a waterfall at the end down into the main valley. Glaciers pick up and deposit rocks. But this rock is very square edged. That doesn't sit well with transport. We looked at the slope around and above. Scree above is created by freeze-thaw cycles. Solid H20 takes up more space than liquid because the bond angles force it open. Thus freezing of water in cracks tries to push rock apart. I didn't think lumps this big fell off crags but then I remembered that there is a lump said to be the size of a bungalow about to fall from Castle Rock of Triermain. My guess is that this rock fell from the crag above and cracked for that reason.

Heavy chain mail at Bosworth battlefield

The museum at the Bosworth battlefield had a dressing up section. We found the chain mail very hard to lift. I had no idea that it was so heavy. They had even hung one example on a spring balance. It was 8.5 kg.

Clock chimes in the Chatsworth Hotel, Worthing

The clock chimes are cylinders that are hit. They are the ones at the back. A stationary wave is set up in the air in the pipe. It has an anti-node at each end. This is a point of maximum oscillation. The node is in the middle. Thus each tube contains half a wavelength. The longest pipe was about 50 cm long so the wavelength is 1m. Using the wave equation, wave speed = frequency x wavelength, then frequency = 330/1 = 330 Hz assuming the speed of sound to be 330 metres per second. This is definitely in the audible range for humans which goes as low as 20 Hz. 330 Hz is G#. The next whole tone up would be F# which is 372 Hz giving a wavelength of 88 cm and pipe length of 44 cm. A pipe that is 6 cm shorter seems reasonable looking at the picture.