This is my favourite snippet from this month’s Science magazine.
Liquid cats
My kids are so cute…
…and don't they know it!
Reflections
When the wind stirs the water, the ripples distort the reflection. When everything is calm and still, that’s when there’s the greatest clarity.
Big train, little train
When we asked Nathanael what toys he wanted to bring to play with on the bullet train, he really wanted to bring his bullet train… It’s very meta!
Nathanael’s new favorite game is “man jumps down,” ever since I showed him the man jumping from a balloon up on the edge of space…
Teaching Zach algebra
I’m sure teachers will have something to say about starting a six-year-old on algebra already… But he just loves maths!
Researchers leaving the UK
About a third of those who earned their Ph.D. in the United Kingdom were living in another country by 2016. But only about 15% of Ph.D.s from other EU nations migrated away.
— from Science magazine.
This is very fascinating. I am one of quite a crowd who have looked outside the UK for research opportunities.
Understatement of the day?
Clearly, cracks in reactor vessels are unwelcome.
from Physics World: Focus on Nuclear Energy, April 2017
New website
It’s time for another new website! I hope you like the new look.
The move was kind of forced on me, as Tumblr is no longer working in China, so my old website (which relied a lot on Tumblr’s servers) was looking rather sad. Starting my new job, I’ve been linking to my website from a number of professional sites, so I wanted it to work properly again.
I’ve moved from Tumblr to WordPress, and I’m very pleased with the new look. There are sure to be a few teething problems, but overall it’s been quite a smooth migration process. There are a few headaches with images embedded in the blog posts though.
Take a look around and let me know what you think!
Safe stopping distance
When I was taught to drive in England, my teacher taught me how to drive safely by keeping space between the cars in front and behind. “If you’re in traffic and the car behind is impatient and starts driving really close behind your car, you might be tempted to speed up to get further away from them,” he said. “In fact, that’s the worst thing to do, because it brings you closer to the car in front, and if the car in front stops suddenly, you’ll have to stop suddenly too, and then impatient car behind you will crash into the back of you. The most important thing is to have plenty of space in front of you, so if the car in front does something unexpected, you’ll have plenty of time to react.”
The key word here is unexpected. In England, almost all drivers do what is expected of them. If there’s a red light, they stop. If they’re in a right-turn only lane, they turn right. If they’re driving down a road at 30 mph with lots of cars around them, they’ll keep going straight, slow down gradually, or indicate a change of direction. Of course, sometimes someone won’t do these things, and that’s the unexpected factor. But you have to have an expected way of behaving before you can have anything unexpected…