Category Archives: Physics

Intellectual poverty

Posted on 06/10/2010 by lilyasquith

There’s a lot of kerfuffle at the moment about the “brain drain” – UK scientists leaving for America or Europe because they can’t get a job in the UK any more. This is undoubtedly a real effect, but perhaps doesn’t seem that relevant to the average UK tax payer. Or MP. Continue reading →

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Swinging cats and levitating frogs

Posted on 05/10/2010 by Jon Butterworth

Congratulations to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov on winning the Nobel prize in physics – not for their frog-levitating work, but for groundbreaking studies of graphene On The Guardian.

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Keep calm, carry on, but don’t keep quiet

Posted on 04/10/2010 by Jon Butterworth

See also Chapter 4.1 of Smashing Physics. I have been dealing with cuts in science since 2007. It can be draining and depressing, but I have learned at least two important lessons. The HERA collider started up for the first … Continue reading →

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Health and Safety in Particle Physics II

Posted on 29/09/2010 by Jon Butterworth

After Lily’s post on poor risk assessment in particle physics, I thought I should bring to your attention the risk of putting your hand in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – as discussed by Ed Copeland and his colleagues at … Continue reading →

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