Anthorn aerials

If you look carefully into the sunset in the pictures of the previous post, you can make out the aerials at Anthorn, 10 miles north of Wigton. They now have the Greenwich Time Signal. This takes some thinking about. Noon should technically be defined as the time at which the Sun is highest in the sky. This varies from place to place even within England. So noon in Carlisle is 8 minutes later than in London if done this way. Before the industrial revolution, this is exactly how they set the time on the big tower clocks in each time. Then they invented the train which ran to timetables. If each town had its own locally set time, the timetables wouldn't work so it was decided to standardise the UK so that all clocks said 12noon when the Sun was highest over Greenwich in London, because that's where the official observatory and naval headquarters were. A signal was sent out to all towns to synchronise the clocks. This type of time is called Greenwich Mean Time (G.M.T.) Until recently, the signal was sent out by radio waves from big aerials next to the M1 at Rugby. Now we've got the honour of broadcasting the nation's time!

Summer solstice

It was the longest day of the year yesterday. From our house, the Sun sets well to the north west. That's the payback we get in the north for the very early sunsets in mid winter. Watching the Sun touch the horizon and then visibly go beyond the horizon is about the only way I know of experiencing the turning of the Earth. If you enlarge the first picture you can see Anthorn aerials. More on them in a future post. In the second picture, the hill to the right of the telegraph pole is called Queensbury. It is nearly 40 miles away across the Solway in Scotland.

James Lovelock

I have been reading this book. James Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis has been one of the more controversial theories in recent years. He claims that the whole Earth acts as a living organism and regulates the conditions on the planet to ensure the continuance of life. I still find it hard to accept in full but there is now irrefutable evidence that living organisms do have a sizable effect on the atmosphere and thus affect the living conditions. I changed my mind on Lovelock after watching a BBC4 profile of him. He invented the detector that enabled the hole in the ozone layer to be found. He clearly believes in science done by making observations. This is important.

Campaign for mass

Further to my post last autumn about the Campaign for Mass, imagine my horror when my wife pointed this shocker out to me over the breakfast table. Any fool knows that if it is measured in grams it must be mass. Perhaps they could state the weight of the cereal as 4.5Newtons...

Cyclopedean rock formations

The Cairngorm Mountains are made of granite. This is an intrusive igneous rock that solidifies over millions of years underground, the magma having never made it to the surface. Then over the millenia, the rock layers above wear away. What happens is that the release of the pressure that the rock was feeling when it was formed causes it to expand. The expansion causes it to split vertically and horizontally. This means that many granite rock formations look like they are made out of regular blocks. Some people used to think they were built by an ancient civilisation of giants. The name "Cyclopedean" comes from the giant Cyclops in Greek mythology. I have actually only ever heard it applied to the mountains on Arran. The prominent lumps of hard rock left exposed on the horizon are called TORS in Devon. You can see them clearly along the horizon in the picture of Beinn Mheadhoin. If you can't pronounce the Gaelic, go to http://www.munromagic.com/MountainInfo.cfm/13. If you click the loudspeaker, it will say it for you.

Cairngorm weather station

The top of Cairngorm mountain, the sixth highest on these islands, turns out to have a weather station feeding data to Heriot-Watt University weather station in Edinburgh. Now I need to look up the data!