All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace

Here is a link to a BBC programme. The warning is that it could be considered to have a left-wing bias, but if you are aware of that and think clearly, you are quite capable of making up your own mind.

What I liked was that he goes through the history of the idea of ecosystems. The Physics link is that some people modelled the feedback mechanisms using electronic circuits. Later it was discovered that the systems were far more complex than imagined. Though they didn't say in the programme, this would bring it under the topic of Chaos Theory in Physics.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b011rbws/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_The_Use_and_Abuse_of_Vegetational_Concepts/

Listen to this Guardian podcast

Matty Hoban is a former student of mine at The Becket School, Nottingham. He is currently doing a PhD in Physics in London. I have just found out that he appeared on the podcast of the Science section of the Guradian newspaper's website back in January. Amazing!

Here's the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/audio/2011/jan/31/science-weekly-podcast-supercomputer-ikea-archaeology

Tensioning weights for railway cables

This photograph is from the high speed line to the Channel Tunnel just north of the River Thames in Essex. You can see similar on the viaducts in Carlisle. They are to put tension into the cables to keep them taut. They are made of concrete and you put on different numbers, just like the slotted masses we use in the lab. Notice the intricate system of insulators to stop electrical conduction. And in this case you can call them weights, not masses, because gravity is pulling them down. I came across a fantastic quotation from Sir Patrick Moore: "Gravity is the force that gives weight to mass."