This is a repost of an old article from October 2011 with a few tweaks. The video below is from the BBC TV series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. It is based upon the novel by Douglas Adams, which in turn was based upon the radio series of the same name. I started to …
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OK Pinheads, How’d The Moon Get There?
One of the reasons I love science so much is that it gives you the tools to find answers to questions. Asking good questions is one of the most important skills a scientist will learn. A scientific question is one that can be investigated; one that has the possibility of being answered. A question that …
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A Jolly Video…
Higher, Faster, Further…
Many thanks to XanderW for this pupil post about Red Bull Stratos. There are more like it on the way, Red Bull Stratos was the mission in which the Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner would break the skydiving record, jumping from a height of 23.4 miles (38.6 km). The jump took place on the 14th October 2012 …
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Putting Things In Perspective…
In one of Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy stories, Zaphod Beeblebrox is sentenced to the Total Perspective Vortex. This imaginary machine is the ultimate sanction in the galaxy. It destroys your mind by giving you perspective; by showing you just how insignificant you are compared to the enormity of the Universe. You can …
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Green Revolution…
“…a change in the right direction, but it has not transformed the world into a Utopia” One of my science heroes was a biologist and agricultural innovator. To some, one of the greatest human beings ever to have lived, to others a source of inequality and supporter of western agribusiness. He is estimated to have saved over a …
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Video With YOU In It…
If you look really carefully you can see yourself in the background of this video. A real astronaut, on a real space station making a YouTube video. It is just one of several that he completed during his time in space. A genuine hero!
A Nice Illusion…
. I have watched this a couple of times and I am still not entirely convinced I can see how he does it. It is a very good illusion. What do you think? [For what it’s worth, I am fairly sure that it is not just a camera trick.]
Gravity Powered Light…
A pair of designers based in London has raised $200,000 towards developing their design for a gravity powered lamp – GravityLight. The idea is that these can be used in communities where access to electricity is restricted. As you may remember from our lessons spent running up flights of stairs, gravitational potential energy (Joule) = …
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Fritz Haber…
I think that Fritz Haber is a very interesting scientist with a fascinating life history. I first heard his story from an episode of RadioLab – which is a podcast I have recommended before. Haber was born in Germany in 1868 and went on to study chemistry at University in Berlin, completing his PhD under …
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