Archive for the ‘Science & technology’ Category
Word of the day: entropy
January 12th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
The shortest – but not the easiest – examination question I ever saw read simply: “Entropy. Discuss.” A simple explanation of entropy is that it is the state of disorder in a system and the natural tendency for all systems to have increased disorder. A fuller explanation is here and a very full exposition is […]
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What can we expect in 2012?
December 30th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
BBC correspondents make their predictions here. I’ve been wondering if I should up-grade my iPhone 1 and iPad 1, so I’m excited at the prospect next year of the iPhone 5 and the iPad 3.
Posted in Miscellaneous, Science & technology | Comments (0)
Why celebrities need a better understanding of science
December 28th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Because otherwise they are tempted to support products or processes that have no scientific merit or validity. For instance, I’m a real fan of Gwyneth Paltrow as an actress but she is wasting her time and ours promoting the notion of detox which is simply unnecessary if one has a balanced diet. Each year, the […]
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Discovery of a new sub-atomic particle
December 22nd, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Physics used to be much simpler. When my parents were at school in the 1930s, they were taught that there is nothing smaller than an atom. When I was at school in the 1960s and studying Physics ‘A’ Level, we were taught that there were three sub-atomic particles: the neutron, the proton and the electron. […]
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Have we found the Higgs boson particle? (2)
December 13th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
A few days ago, I did a posting explaining that today there would be some sort of announcement about the current state of the search for the elusive Higgs boson particle which is predicted to exist in the Standard Model exposition of how sub-atomic particles interact with one another. So what did the scientists have […]
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What’s going to disappear next?
December 12th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
I remember when the Post Office announced the end of the telegram. There were outraged protests: suppose grandma dropped dead and the relatives did not have a telephone, how could one advise them of the funeral? Somehow we managed. Today the “Daily Express” has a whimsical piece about other things that the advance of technology […]
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Have we found the Higgs boson particle? (1)
December 10th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Almost four years ago now, I did a posting speculating that the discovery of the Higgs boson particle might be imminent. Well, it wasn’t. It has proved even more elusive that scientists thought. But, this Tuesday, there will be a statement on the latest information arising from the search for the particle at the Large […]
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A review of “An Optimist’s Tour Of The Future”
November 3rd, 2011 by Roger Darlington
I’ve just finished a book by British author Mark Stevenson with the unusual title “An Optimist’s Tour Of The Future”. It’s a very readable review of the current state of and future prospects for technologies which are utterly transforming our world. You can read my review here.
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Where now for stem cell research?
October 17th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
Eleven years ago, Vee and I were flying from Beijing to London after a trip to China and found ourselves talking to a 25 year old Chinese student who had never been out of China. She was on her way to Oxford University to start a PhD in biochemical engineering. Dr Hua Ye is now […]
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The wonderful world of graphene
October 8th, 2011 by Roger Darlington
My former University of Manchester was thrilled last year when the Nobel Prize for Physics when to two of its researchers Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov who discovered graphene in 2004. The university was delighted with this week’s announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne that graphene research will receive a £50 million […]
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