Whale

So this is my latest blender creation - yes a whale, for no reason in particular!

Too much time

So, one of my little projects at the moment is trying to learn how to use Blender (the open source 3D modeling/animation package). I've been using it this term for my lectures. This is my latest creation, for my quantum 2 lectures, the first few squared spherical harmonics. I wrote a python script to draw the curves. Of course I could have downloaded an image of these and so not stayed up until 1am writing my script and so have already had my actual lecture prepared ... but where's the fun in that!

RANT: Al Gore?!

Okay, Al Gore might be a nice enough guy and I'm sure he's worried about climate change in a nice middle-class baby-boomer kind of way - but the Nobel freaking Peace Prize?!! This man was vice-president of the most powerful (and polluting) nation in the world for - what was it 4 years? - and during that time he never showed the slightest serious interest in environmental issues and neither did his boss Bill "The American Way of Life is not up for Negotiation" Clinton.
The thing that really sticks in my craw though is this idea that somehow his little film has awoken the world to climate change! Everything in it has been said over and over again. Scientists and other such skruffy hippies have be talking about this for decades. As a kid in the 70's I read books about pollution and other environmental issues (including the greenhouse effect) and yet now suddenly people are saying "oh thanks for bringing this to our attention Al we had no idea".
So Al: I'm glad you've woken up and got the message at last and you've probably done some good drilling this into that intransigent section of the American public who still think it's their god-given right to munch through every last scrap of the planet like pigs at the trough. We certainly need people like you on-side, but credit where credit is due - there have been dozens of (better) documentaries over the years which have addressed these issues but were just dismissed as leftist ranting, the Nobel Peace Prize should not be given out just for having good timing and slick publicist.
RANT ENDS ....

Campaign for The Noether

I've just delivered my lecture in momentum to my intro physics class and it occurred to me - why is there no derived unit of momentum? So I'm putting in my two-penniesworth that we should call it the noether (With 1 noether = 1 kg m / s) after Amalie Emmy Noether the German-born mathematician and mathematical physicist. There are several reasons for this - first Noether's Theorem is a beautiful expression of how the conservation laws arise from the fundamental symmetries in the universe, one of which is the homogeneity of space from which the conservation of momentum derives. Second there are few units named after women (I assume the Curie is named after Marie and not Pierre) and Emmy Noether's personal story of a woman struggling for recognition in male-dominated European science in the early 20th century is a poignant one.
I realize there are a couple of problems with it - we need a symbol for the unit and we can't use N because Newton already has that but I'm sure we can think of something, she was Jewish so perhaps using the Hebrew equivalent (which I think is נ) although that would probably cause more problems. I think capital P might be the best since p is usually used for momentum. There is also the problem of pronunciation (it's pronounced Ner-ter). Anyway that's my pitch.
Probably not all that important but I like Emmy and I think she should get more recognition!

Brown & Thatcher

A Labour Prime-Minister shaking hands with Margret Thatcher on the steps of Downing Street? I'm kind of reminded of the end of Orwell's Animal Farm where the animals look in through the window of the farmhouse to see the pigs sitting down and having a jolly meal with the farmer they all risked their lives to throw out ... very sad

First Post

Oh my I have a blog ... but what shall I do with it? .... no idea .... so here's something funny my cousin sent me http://www.slideshare.net/dcoops/difficult-logistics/