Higgs Hunters

Zooniverse is a "Citizen Science" project that started life as Galaxy Zoo. A researcher at Oxford University realised that humans are better at classifying galaxies from photographs than computers. They asked people to help via the Internet and were overwhelmed by how successful it was. They have undertaken many similar projects. They have just launched one to help researchers at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN identify particle events on photographs that might lead to more evidence for the Higgs Boson. I had a go yesterday. There are instructions to help you. Some of the pictures are easier than others but you should have a go and help this wonderful project: http://www.higgshunters.org/

Solar System Christmas Tree at Caldbeck

There is a display of Christmas trees at Caldbeck church this weekend. I loved this Solar System design. What a brilliant idea! The star at the top of the tree is our Sun and the planets spiral round the tree in order. You can easily identify the Earth and red Mars along with Saturn in the pictures. I wasn't able to go myself so I don't know how they dealt with Pluto, which was relegated from full planet status some years ago. It spoils the mnemonic I used to use with classes: My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets.

Water ball in Windermere

I spotted this feature outside a hotel in Windermere. Water trickles out of the top of the globe and down the sides. What made me stop and think was that the water stays at the surface of the globe even below the equator. You'd think that gravity would pull the water straight down as a waterfall from the equator, but the water stays stuck to the surface to continue its descent. The ball was not electrically charged. The outer surface of the water certainly experiences surface tension but is it this force that also holds the water onto the surface of the ball? Gravity continues to pull the water downwards but the force from the surface on the water must be stronger than the gravitational pull to stop it leaving the surface. My hypothesis is that if the flow rate were higher then the water would leave the surface at the equator.

Long exposure on Binsey

We climbed up Binsey in the dark. I was pleased that the long exposure on the camera was able to let in enough light to make any sort of picture. I put the camera on a tripod and used the timer to avoid knocking the camera because I'm guessing the shutter was open for several seconds. I need to come up with a strategy for measuring it. It is a time when the Charge Coupled Device CCD that is the light sensor comes into its own because it has a quantum efficiency of 70% compared to 4% for chemical films. That means that 70% of the photons are detected so they can operate in lower light intensities.

Archimedes Screw at Whinlatter

We enjoyed this at Whinlatter. It is an ancient type of water pump and such a wonderful technology. So how to do a thorough-going Physics analysis? The weight of the water holds it in the bottom of each section. You turn the handle and the walls of the screw apply a centripetal force to the water, pushing inwards on it. It is a complex example of centripetal motion because the water itself does not spin round. It has inertia so it tries to stay where it is and I suppose that the metal walls slide underneath it. The kinetic energy put in by you turning the handle is transformed into gravitational potential energy as the water finds itself in the next level of the screw. That's an outline of the ideas going through my head. I'm not yet convinced that I've put the parts together in a logical and forceful way.

Chilling with Ueli Steck

We went to hear the amazing Ueli Steck at Kendal Mountain Festival. If you've not come across him, watch this: http://www.wimp.com/eigerrecord/ He spends a lot of time in very cold places so as a tribute I took this photograph of my chilled fizzy beverage in the bar. Notice the condensation forming above the liquid level. That's water vapour in the air condensing back into liquid water. It made me think about the process in more detail. I'm thinking that the reduced temperatures slows the water molecules in the vapour so that the weaker electrostatic forces that keep water molecules together in a liquid. I'm thinking Van der Waals forces but a quick glance at the Internet suggests that it might be more complicated than that. A simple thing and I don't really know it!

V-pendulum at Whinlatter

 

I timed this swing in the play area at Whinlatter. It took 31 seconds for 10 complete swings, although I did time from the amplitude instead of putting a fiducial marker in the middle which will have slightly affected the accuracy. So 3.1 seconds for the time period. It looks really complicated with so many strings hanging, but I had a hunch that it would obey the equation for the simple pendulum using the vertical height up the middle to level with the top support. T=2pi x sqrt(L/g). It gives L, the vertical height, as 2.4 metres. That looked about right.