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Bill's science: February 2008
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Maths and Science blog. Saturday, February 02, 2008. Bad science: Cubic litres! I enjoy Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column in Saturday's Guardian. Today's included this. I just love the idea of the water by-passing the dam in the extra dimensions. I have always felt that really a universe with only three spacial dimensions was just right. From "Flat Land" [ W. On n-spheres but I am not sure what influence that would have on the life of nine-dimensional beings. At 2am on the Sunday morning I was sitting on...
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Bill's science: August 2007
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Maths and Science blog. Saturday, August 04, 2007. Wildfires set the air alight (maths on YouTube). My colleage John Dold. S work on bush fires appeared in New Scientist. It explains why firefighters thought they saw the "air catching fire". There is a video with a commentary by John on YouTube. And linked on this New Scientist Blog. Which includes work on the influence of the slope of the ground on the spreading of the fire. Before I had only seen frivolity on YouTube ( cat herding.
billscience.blogspot.com
Bill's science: January 2008
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Maths and Science blog. Sunday, January 20, 2008. Advice on choosing an undergraduate maths course in the UK. I am often asked for advice on choosing a place to study maths for a first degree in the United Kingdom. I summarised my thoughts in. Actually my page on league tables of U.K. maths departments. Stemmed from this, in answer to pondering questions including "Which are the largest UK maths departments? Any comments on the essay - please post on this blog. Posted by Billlion at 7:48 AM.
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Bill's science: July 2008
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Maths and Science blog. Wednesday, July 09, 2008. The Baby" at MOSI. As part of Making Maths at Manchester. We visited the Museum of Science and Industry. To see the replica of "The Baby" or Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine. The first computer to store its program in electronic memory. Can be input, were from the radio selector of a Spitfire, so if anyone had a spitfire with a broken switch they were out of luck as all the remaining spares had been bought for this project.
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Bill's science: December 2008
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Maths and Science blog. Monday, December 22, 2008. Ironic "construction manager of the year" award. I love the Alan Turing Building, home of the School of Mathematics at Manchester. It is designed to maximize chance encounter and people therefore run in to each other and stand around talking about mathematics. Just as it was intended. Only now, a year and a half after we moved in, is sound insulation to be installed in the walls. Turns out they forgot to put it in at the time! View my complete profile.
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Bill's science: May 2009
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Maths and Science blog. Wednesday, May 20, 2009. I tried Wolfram alpha for the first time today. I was pleased that it handled some mathematical queries without any special syntax. I asked Fourier transform of absolute value. It worked by I just tried it again and it timed out. Typing names of various chemicals was informative. Other information it gives was found to be inaccurate. For example it thinks The University of Manchester. I also tried a fish Gnathonemus petersii. Posted by Billlion at 1:04 AM.
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Bill's science: December 2007
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Maths and Science blog. Friday, December 21, 2007. Journalist Chloe Stothard asked for my five most memorable things this year, a story that ran in the Times Higer Education Supliment, as. So what were the high notes of 2007? Free subscription required). Mine (with lin. We moved, with the rest of the School of Mathematics, to our new purpose-designed Alan Turing Building. We were part of an event with 120 sixth-form students from all over the country solving mathematical problems for two days. Heart that...
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Bill's science: November 2007
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Maths and Science blog. Friday, November 09, 2007. General ignorance of negative numbers. It is often said that the UK National Lottery. According the the ManchesterEvening News. Tina Farrell, from Levenshulme. A suburb of Manchester]. Called Camelot after failing to win with several cards. The 23-year-old, who said she had left school without a maths GCSE,. Said: "On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than. 8 The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and. City ...
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Bill's science: October 2006
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Maths and Science blog. Saturday, October 21, 2006. This post was on Bill's stuff. But I have moved it as being more related to science and education). I can see perhaps that in a few years with as substantial effort, it might be possible to make an electronic system that achieves the functionality of a blackboard (as well as also having some advantages). But the result would be likely to be quite costly, require more maintenance, and provide only a marginal advantage over the low technology approach.
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Bill's science: June 2008
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Maths and Science blog. Tuesday, June 17, 2008. Sir Bobby Charlton and land mines. A group of us at the University of Manchester and Lancaster University were approached by Sir Bobby Charlton. To see if we can come up with a faster way to clear anti-personnel mines. We went to a demonstration of what an explosive charge similar to that in a typical mine. Could do. The toe was blown off the wellington boot and went 20 or 30 m in the air. The video is from Telegraph TV. Posted by Billlion at 3:38 AM.