Roberts Boyle and Hooke

During the blizzard in Oxford, I went down the High Street to find the memorial on the wall of University College. Boyle's Law for gases now comes towards the end of the Upper Sixth. I didn't know that Robert Hooke was his assistant. Hooke was Newton's bitter rival, best known in physics and engineering for Hooke's Law: the extension of a spring is directly proportional to the applied force as far as the limit of proportionality.

Ice floes in the Solway

I've never seen ice in the sea before. We went to Silloth yesterday, and, well, I have now. It is hard for the sea to freeze for 2 reasons:
1. Salt water needs to go down to -6 degrees C to freeze.
2. The sea has such a large thermal mass that it is hard for its temperature to change much. The work about specific heat capacity and latent heat is now at the end of the Upper Sixth but it is not difficult. It means that oceans always stay at roughly the same temperature, which is why coastal climates don't suffer from extremes.
This ice must have formed on the rivers up stream and be flowing out to sea, rather than being frozen brine. Famously, the same phenomenon took out the original Bowness railway viadeuct in the 1880s.

Lunar eclipse

Thanks to Mrs B for alerting me to this. I was up at 7 and freezing in the garden but it was worth it. It's got me thinking about the mechanics of this. To what extent does the Moon move into the Earth's shadow and to what extent does the Earth's shadow move onto the Moon? Whatever, it happens quickly over the space of less than an hour. Calculationa await.

My trip to Oxford

It snowed a lot on my trip to Oxford. So what do physics teachers do? Well, I measured the depth of the snow using my Barrow AFC ruler. Data is everytjing in physics. The final picture shows where the measurement was made outside Keble College chapel, which is opposite the particle physics building.

Ice

We went down to Keswick at the height of the big freeze the other week. If you look at the pictures, you can just see ice forming on Derwent Water. It is amazing that ice floats. It is the only example I can think of where a solid is less dense than the liquid from which it forms. This is because the bonds between the molecules rotate and spread as it solidifies. It is fortunate that this happens. If ice was more dense than water, lakes would freeze from the bottom up, killing all life. Life may never have survived on Earth.

The physics of reindeer

We went to visit the reindeer herd near Aviemore whilst on holiday. They were introduced in the 1950s as someone from Sweden recognised that the habitat was suitable. We have met the wandering herd of females on the Cairngorm plateau before. The males are kept in pasture most of the year so that the breeding programme can be managed to prevent in-breeding. Notice the size of the feet - large area to reduce the pressure on the snow. A bit of physics. Apparently their hairs are hollow - trapping air because trapped air is a marvellous indicator. Think about double glazing!

Black holes in Keswick

If you are down by the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick, put some change into the Rotary Club Wishing Well. It is constructed like a Black Hole. Coins spiral round and fall in. Once they are gone, they can't come back. Look at any picture of the field around a black hole on the Internet and you'll see what I mean.