Heisenberg on In Our Time

Lord Bragg of Wigton has a big interest in Physics and has done a lot to promote the subject. Heisenberg was the subject of a recent In Our Time. Towards the end, a contributor describes starting out to draw a wave as a series of points. When you draw the first point, you know a lot about the position. But you need to add more points in order to figure out the wavelength. With more points, you know less about the position. Hence particle and wave properties cannot be fully known at once.

Another lichenometry data point

It occured to me that the slates on this roof are also a way of measuring the rate of growth of the type of lichen that grows on the cemetery wall, which is half a mile away. The slates are 75 years old. So this shows that the lichen is increasing in diameter by about 2mm a year or 1mm in any ditrection.

Dark Side of the Car

I lived this vehicle. The image is one of the first bits of Physics that I remember. My Year 9 teacher was at pains to point out that the colours should be split in the middle of the prism too and not white. 

Beautiful Belt of Venus picture

 APOD had a fab picture last week which went beyond just the Belt of Venus. More sections of the sunset sky to examine and understand now.

Wheelie bin decibel level

I don't know why I'd never noticed before but I was amazed to notice that the wheelie bin had a decibel rating. It turns out that it is a warning about the noise made when the lid slams down. See here. There are lots of decibel scales on the Internet. It suggests that this is somewhere between a loud truck, a shouted conversation and a hairdryer. One difference is duration - the lid slam doesn't last long.

Potential well in Dalby Forest

I was really impressed by this structure in the adventure playground at Dalby Forest. It really does look like an inverse square potential well. 

Situated in the outer surround, it is a brilliant representation of the nucleus and alpha radiation. The alpha particles would have to use quantum tunneling to escape through the sides of the potential well.

Shap Granite erratics at Robin Hood's Bay?

We found these two boulders on the beach at Robin Hood's Bay. They could well be glacial erratics. There was always a stone opposite the Radcliffe Science Library in Oxford that was a glacial erratic of Shap Granite brought back from Filey, I think. It shows ice moved in that direction. I suppose they could have been brought as sea defences but sea defence boulders are usually all of the same type. Also the coast is not being defended!