A few weeks ago, as I metioned in a previous blog, I was on a panel discussing the science fiction film Silent Running. Also on the panel was Dr. Rob Thomas of Cardiff University’s School of Biosciences. Rob has kindly given me permission to reproduce here his comments on some of the issues raised in [...]
Archive for November, 2011
An ecosystem under strain
Posted in Environment, Science, tagged Silent Running on 25/11/2011 | Leave a Comment »
The ups and downs
Posted in Running, tagged 10 mile race, Elan Valley, Penarth and Dinas runners, Running, running club on 22/11/2011 | Leave a Comment »
On Saturday (19th) I, and several other Penarth & Dinas Runners club members, drove a couple of hours up to the Elan Valley in mid-Wales to compete in the Elan Valley 10 mile race. The previous Sunday (13th), I had run a 10k race in Bute Park in Cardiff, and had got (back) under 45 [...]
Song for whoever
Posted in Music, tagged Paul Heaton, Pop music, The Beautiful South, Top 40 on 21/11/2011 | Leave a Comment »
I have a very busy day today, so I thought I would just do a quick post with this video of one of my favourite songs by The Beautiful South. This song, “Song For Whoever” was a hit for them in 1989, and features many of their trademarks; clever lyrics and beautiful harmonies. Enjoy!
Galilean Relativity
Posted in History, Physics, tagged Einsten, faster than light, Galileo, Physics, Relativity on 18/11/2011 | Leave a Comment »
Relativity has been in the news quite a bit recently with the detection of neutrinos apparently travelling faster than the speed of light. Although most people don’t know the details of Einstein’s theory of Relativity, many are aware of the “cosmic speed limit” predicted in it, and also the most famous equation in physics which [...]
The state of the Union
Posted in Rugby, Sport, Wales, tagged Martin Johnson, RFU, Rugby, Shaun Edwards, Six Nations, Twickenham, Warren Gatland, WRU on 17/11/2011 | Leave a Comment »
The state of the Rugby Football Union, the governing body of English rugby, is not good. Thankfully for the Welsh, the state of the Welsh Rugby Union is very good, so I am not going to lose too much sleep over the state of the game in England. In fact, I look forward to, hopefully, [...]
A moveable feast
Posted in Astronomy, History, Nature, tagged Calendar, Christians, Festivals, Lunar, Muslims, Pope Gregory, the Moon on 16/11/2011 | Leave a Comment »
Last week, the 9th of November 2011, marked the end of Eid al-Adha, the Muslim festival to commemorate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son Isaac to God. Eid al-Adha started on Sunday the 6th of November (or Monday the 7th, depending on where you are) and ended on the 9th (or 10th) of November [...]
The birthplace of modern astrophysics
Posted in Astronomy, History, Physics, Science, tagged 40-inch, Astrophysics, George Ellery Hale, Refractor, The Astrophysical Journal, World's largest telescope on 15/11/2011 | 6 Comments »
Last Thursday (10th of November) I gave a talk to Swansea Astronomical Society. This is the 3rd or 4th time I have talked to them, and I was asked by Dr. Steve Wainwright to talk about the early history of the Universty of Chicago‘s Yerkes Observatory. I worked at Yerkes from 1995 to 2001, during [...]
Test of latex equations
Posted in Uncategorized on 14/11/2011 | Leave a Comment »
This is just a post to try and figure out what is going wrong with the horizontal alignment of Latex text. For example doesn’t seem to align correctly with the text either side of it. What happens if I just put in into the line? That comes out above the text too. Clearly something is [...]
Smokin’ Joe Frazier
Posted in History, News, Sport, tagged Boxing, Fight of the Century, George Foreman, Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, Thrilla in Manilla on 08/11/2011 | 2 Comments »
This morning, I woke up to the news that Joe Frazier, “smoking’ Joe”, had died of liver cancer at the age of 67. Joe Frazier will forever be associated with the epic heavyweight fights of the early and mid 1970s, in particular his fights against Muhammad Ali. This was at a time when everyone seemed [...]
