Helpmyphysics

Check out the physics.org website for a look at some of the interesting physics facts they have been posting on buses.

Physics.org

The picture above shows the extent of the snowfall over Scotland these last few days.

Here is a brilliant picture showing all the space exploration missions of the past 50 years from planet Earth.
Just imagine the fact that in 50 years we`ve only explored a tiny tiny distance from our home.

Click here for the National Geographic Link or click the picture above to download the poster.

During an Easyjet flight from Edinburgh to Madrid I took a snap of the Scottish hills jutting out of the clouds. These are the western hills as the aircraft headed west from Edinburgh and was just about to turn and fly down the south coast of Scotland.

The sun was shining on the left of the aircraft on the opposite side to my window.

I noticed on the picture a small rounded rainbow which had a bright centre. (Marked on the picture with an arrow)
This is called a Glory or a Broken Spectre. This optical phenomenon is usually seen on mountains when the sun is low and behind the climber.

Check this link to find out more.
Glories
Optical Phenomenon

During my visit to CERN I had the privilege to speak to particle physicist Rolf Landau. Rolf gave our sixteen strong Scottish physics teachers (plus about fifty English physics teachers) three lectures on the history of particle physics.
Rolf also hosted a couple of question and answer sessions about various aspects of what is happening at CERN.

It was Rolf`s introduction about the curiosity that is needed to become a great physicist that caught my imagination.
I took the opportunity to ask him to record that advice to the many Scottish young people who are about to take up Physics.
You`ll find the recording below.

Rolf works on antimatter and was a consultant to Dan Brown`s Angels & Demons movie.

CERN EDUCATION

[display_podcast]

Colliding Particles – Episode 2: Big Bang Day from Mike Paterson on Vimeo.

OK so you have chosen to study physics over the next two years at Standard grade or have chosen Intermediate 1,2 or are even crashing the Higher.

Congratulations! You have chosen a cracking good subject in physics and I wish you well.

Want to see top class physicists in action? Then follow this brilliant series documenting the lives of physicists working at the Centre of European Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva Switzerland.

I had the great privilege of visiting CERN last week along with 15 other physics teachers from all over Scotland. It was great to see people from all over the world working on the great mysteries of the Universe.

Who knows that by the end of your school physics you could be on your way too to answering the great questions of science.

Colliding Particles

Click on the picture below to read an interesting article about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which will be switched on this week

Sunday Herald
28 Mar 2010

This is a great site to help you understand the electric circuits you have been studying.
You can run it on your computer or download it and use it offline.

PHET Circuit Construction

Last June I placed some photographic film into a tin cannister with a small hole punched into its side. The tin cannister was then attached to a clothes pole in my backgarden and left.

This afternoon I fetched the cannister and took the photographic film out. My son John scanned the photographic film and with the aid of some image software made the image negative.

The result is the picture above.

The picture clearly shows the path of the sun through the sky over the last six months.
I believe you can see we didn`t have a great summer by the broken lines at the top. More sun shone in the month of October.

This has been a fascinating simple project that was carried out very easily.
If you want to try out the project then follow the link below.
In a few weeks time it will be the winter solstice when the sun will be in its lowest arc across the sky. Try it out over the next six months and make a record of the sun`s path yourself.

Solar Path Experiment

It is forty years since the crew of Apollo 11 went to the moon in a historic journey that captivated all mankind in the summer of 1969.
As a young boy aged 8 it was a fascinating and exciting time. I can always remember those summer evenings keeping up to date with reports from the BBC and ITV.
On the night of the moonlanding I was thrilled that the tv stations actually kept broadcasting well into the early morning hours. This was unheard of then.
If you want to find out what it was like in those days then click on this link which is telling the story of the epic moon mission in real time.
There is a special widget that keeps you informed about the mission as it happened in July 1969.

We choose to go to the moon.

PS I am so grateful to my late father for waking me up in the early hours of Monday July 21st 1969 to witness the most historic moment of mankind`s history to date.