On the 31st December, the day will be one second longer (seems an odd choice of day to me, why put the extra second on the one day when everyone is clock-watching?)
INTERNATIONAL EARTH ROTATION AND REFERENCE SYSTEMS SERVICE (IERS)
SERVICE INTERNATIONAL DE LA ROTATION TERRESTRE ET DES SYSTEMES DE REFERENCE
SERVICE DE LA ROTATION TERRESTRE
OBSERVATOIRE DE PARIS
61, [...]
In this article I hope to illustrate some of the ideas behind the strange topic of Quantum Cryptography, though I won’t be discussing cryptography itself, that comes later - just the necessary physics.
First we must consider the nature of light (this can be generalised to any particle once we get all quantum mechanical, but let’s [...]
The LHC at Cern will be switched on today, though there won’t be collisions for a little while.
The LHC will collide Hadrons (obviously) at high speeds. Hadrons are particles which contain quarks. Everyday examples are Protons and Neutrons. The LHC can only accelerate charged particles and so it’ll collide protons. The high energy collisions will [...]
I’ve just posted the following to this article about the tendency in the UK to see being bad at Maths (and Science) as a mark of pride.
It really annoys me every time a presenter on the news ‘jokes’ that they can’t do maths or science. Melvyn Bragg on the usually excellent “in our time” is [...]
As I was cycling into work this morning my mind started to wander. I looked down at the bike beneath me and had a weird sensation of ’solidness’. It’s hard to put this into words, but I’m going to try. There I was, doing about 15miles an hour, balanced on a device which itself was [...]
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