Pink moon

I took this picture earlier in the summer. When the the moon is low down in the sky, the light from the moon comes through the atmosphere at an oblique angle. This means that it travels a longer distance through the air than if it had hit straight on. The light hits tiny particles in the air it is scattered. The short wavelength colours at the blue end of the spectrum are scattered first leaving the redder colours to reach us. Hence the moon looks pink. Incidentally, they say that the moon looks bigger when it is nearer the horizon but that this is an optical illusion.

The future of physics in the UK

The Institute of Physics is concerned that physics needs adequate funding in this climate of cuts. I do believe that physics is vital for the future of the country. People who have studied physics will be responsible for providing energy and for the innovative technology that can earn the country billions. Being very careful not to make this column party political, I wanted to comment on what I heard on the business news on Radio 4 this morning. A representative of the business community was saying that the cap on non-EU nationals being allowed to work in the UK was having a big effect. I woke up when she mentioned the energy provider EDF. This is the reason: As physics has been allowed to run down as a subject in this country, we have begun to rely on hiring physicists from abroad. At the moment, strong nations for training physics are Russia, China and Japan. They would be affected by the cap. From my point of view I think the country needs to decide one of two ways:
1. Do we give up on physics because no one here is interested and just hire physicists from the east?
2. Do we decide that hiring from abroad is a bd thing but then work hard to boost physics in this country?
Answers on a postcard... However, I need to make time to write to my MP to air these concerns.

Lightning conductor on Cockermouth church

This week's Lower Sixth homework asks students to estimate the resistance of the lightning conductor on Wigton church. Here's the one at Cockermouth. If you enlarge the first picture you can see it snaking up the right hand side of the tower. The second view, from the bottom of the tower, shows how it then heads down to disappear into the Earth. To estimate the resistance, we need the dimensions of the conducting strip. So how wide and deep do you think it is? And looking at the spire, how many metres tall would you say that the building is? Good estimation skills are important in physics and engineering. I usually start by imagining how many people stacked on top of each other would reach the top, and work to an over-estimate that the people are two metres tall...

Physics on the TV and radio

Give the X-Factor a miss this week. Saturday night is physics night!

Channel 4: 8pm. Stephen Hawking has an hour on his theories of the universe.

However, if you are feeling very grown up, you could listen to Radio 4. Same time (8pm) they are doing an hour on Richard Feynman. He's my favourite physicist - a genius but also deeply unconventional. Hopefully they'll have some stories about his often bonkers life. But you could catch this on the i-player later...

I'm not the only one

Hopefully, if you click on the picture you should be able to read the letter entitled "There's a fault with power and the story". It's from The Cumberland News letter page this August. The journalists used the wrong units for power and energy. Tsk! Tsk!

A trip to ring the bells at Cockermouth

In the holidays I went down to ring the bells for a wedding in Cockermouth. This grave stone was outside the door to the bell tower. It turns out that Rev Fearon Fallows who died in 1831 was the "Astronomer Royal to His Britannic Majesty at the Cape of Good Hope". He was also a Fellow of St John's College Cambridge and FRS. FRS means "Fellow of the Royal Society" and is an honour awarded to the very top scientists in the UK. Our own Harry Elliot was FRS. So this was the grave of a distinguished physicist by the look of it, confirmation that we do live in a great area for physics. The top of the grave stone has an interesting early map of the world. I've also added some views most of you won't have seen of Cockermouth from the roof of the church beside the bell tower.