Category: Science
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Generating electricity from rainwater
Plug Flow: Generating Renewable Electricity with Water from Nature by Breaking the Limit of Debye Length | ACS Central Science This is perhaps the most fun paper I have read for years. The best thing about it is that this ground breaking research can be reproduced in any 6th Form physics lab. The experiments are…
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Bell’s Theorem and Quantum Computing
One of the themes of the history of science is that topics that were obscure in the past “suddenly” become critically important. A current example is the esoteric science that allows quantum computing. Quantum computing relies on the fact that a pair of particles can be entangled in a singlet state and until they are…
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Nuclear Power is Dead – vote for a carbon-free future
I trained as a nuclear physicist and have followed the industry closely. I thought that nuclear power would have a key role in ensuring that we keep greenhouse gases to a minimum. The Fukushima disaster showed how safe nuclear power is – a modern power station got hit by a tidal wave and suffered an…
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The web at 30
Here is great video from CERN reminding us that they created the web 30 years ago. The narrator closes with “we cannot now imagine or remember a world without the web”. I am afraid I do…
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Does the GICHD really want to remove land mines? An open letter
I visited Cambodia over the summer and was fortunate enough to visit the landmine museum (donate at Cambodian Self-Help Demining). It has been 20 years since Lady Diana successfully campaigned against landmines. The world has moved on hugely and almost every person on the planet has a smartphone containing a billion transistors, we have sub $100 drones…
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Nuclear is dead – never bet against the experience curve
This is next in my “x is dead” series of articles that comment on the effect of change over the past few years. I started my working life in Nuclear Fusion research but for much of the last 20 years I have been working in business. Business is very different from research and development because…
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Mini-Nuclear reactors
There are two big problems with nuclear reactors, long-term waste disposal capital cost The first problem is political and our craven masters are unlikely ever to solve it. The second has always been addressable by technology and I am pleased to see that there is now some progress. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/24/mini-nuclear-reactors-answer-to-climate-change-crisis
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BBC News – Vodka ‘saved’ elephants in Siberian freeze
My company is ElephantPM and here is some elephant orientated physics. Vodka ‘saved’ elephants in Siberian freeze via BBC News – Vodka ‘saved’ elephants in Siberian freeze. In this article the BBC journalist alleges that the elephants’ owners did wrong giving the elephants vodka, “Like with humans, alcohol can make animals feel warmer but it…
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How to sail faster than the wind
The BBC has a great video of the Sailrocket’s world record beating run where it went over 50 knots. Interestingly the wind was only 27 knots, so how was it done? The physicist in me was intrigued. First, let us do a thought experiment. The boat is in a vacuum on a frictionless surface. Although…
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See heavenly bodies tonight (free)
If you go outside tonight at about eight o’clock you should be able to see four heavenly bodies. In the East you will see the full Moon and to its left you should see an orange dot that is Mars. In the West you should see two very bright “stars”; the lower of the two…
Dr James Bayley 