Day 2: Domino Computer Challenge

Sunday 28.10.12 I now have a festival program but there didn't seem to be much I could go to today. I went to one event today but boy was it worth it. The domino computer challenge. This event which also happened yesterday was created by mathematician and MOSI science communicator in residence Matt Parker. Basically, it uses dominoes to illustrate how a computer and its circuitry work to solve a calculation, here a simple addition sum. Ten thousand dominoes were involved. This event was billed as starting from 2pm and finishing at 4pm. I arrived promptly before 2pm to find domino builders still setting up. After some time I asked a nice guy at a nearby table (he was one of the builders) and he told me they had been at it since 8.30am! It will more than likely be ready from 3pm and will only take a minute. Got to admire the patience of everyone involved and it was fun to watch them. As it turned out all was ready by 3.30pm. I filmed it on my cameraphone and you can watch my YouTube video below. Sorry about the poor sound quality. No matter what the outcome it was still great fun! I took some photo's as well. Enjoy.

  

 Also exciting today was a live link up to Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes! You can tweet a message to them on code and they will decipher it and send it back to you :) 'Baby' is here too!

Manchester Science Festival 2012

Well its that time of year again. I cannot believe how quickly it has come around. Since 2009 I have been a STEM Ambassador and was really looking forward to contributing in this way again. I don't know what happened but somehow I didn't get the memo and so started to panic about missing out. After making enquires it seems I have indeed somehow missed the boat and the deadline has passed. Gutted but on the plus side I get to attend some of the festival. Not as much as I would've liked because this year it doesn't quite match up with half term either. Anyway enough explanations already! Today Saturday 27th October is the first day of the festival. I started off at Blackwells book store 11am to see an author's talk entitled 'Waking The Giant' by Bill McGuire. He is a professor of geophysics at UCL and has in the past been a UK government advisor and also done some documentaries. This is also the title of his new book. It was a scary, realistic, eye opening and fascinating talk followed by a good and lengthy Q& A. I really enjoyed it, bought his book and had it signed. A great start to the festival for me. The talk centres around the fact that climate change triggers natural phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunami's. Bill is actually a volcanologist by training. We learn't that 2010 was the hottest year on record and that 2000-2010 has been the hottest decade on record. Another startling fact was that it only takes a very small pertubation to trigger such events. Also  ice sheets are heavier than one might think and can easily cause the surface of earth they are in contact with to bend. I shall enjoy diving into his book which here had a £4 discount :) Next I went along to Manchester Metropolitan University to see a chemistry event entitled 'Fireworks: How do they work?' This was a great show for kids and adults alike. The pyrotechnician in residence Matthew Tosh would make a great children's tv presenter and I loved his t-shirt. It had a hazard symbol on the front and said 'pyrotechnician' and on the back which I saw first it said 'if you see me running, try to keep up!' He put on a splendid show explainng every stage of how a firework is made starting with Caron black powder which set alight on its own isn't very impressive. He worked up to flashes, whistles, fountains and even did a sonic boom and there were smoke rings and flash metal which I suspect is magnesium. Lots of smoke and smells and the kids were really entertained. Also he explained how rockets get their thrust and why he doesn't like them. Basically he doesn't trust them.As he explained he is a trained pyrotechnician and the fireworks he used are specially designed to be used indoors. I wish I had thought of filming this with my cameraphone. I saw that it was being filmed and so hope to see it again online. I would highly recommend seeing his shows. Back in the corridor afterwards, where students had stands doing various things, there was one which caught my eye. A young PhD student with a research stationary bike was talking to a few people about his work. He is concerned about us becoming a nation of overweight people and researches how too much body fat can lead to diabetes. He was very nice and mentioned running alot. I told him I'd just ran a marathon and how could I get to be a better runner especially during training. He said something about reaching my limits. I had hoped for more useful advice but never mind. He was telling us all to start off by doing low intensity running and this will build up more energy mitochondria and we will even notice a difference on our second run. He was nice and slim and I mentioned diet. He said it doesn't matter he eats rubbish (10 mars bars a day!) but lots of excercise. This was a pleasant way to spend 30 minutes. My last 2 events of the day were two author talks back at Blackwells.  The first by a cancer researcher from Greenwich University talking about her new book 'How millions survive cancer'.  Due to advances in technology and treatments thats how. She was a lovely lady from NYC and I enjoyed a brief chat with her afterwards. Dr Lauren Percochino was her name and I got her business card and told her about The Christie and The Paterson Institute for Cancer Research. She had a tiny model of a breast for us to feel so we could get an idea of what a malignant lump would feel like. A frozen pea, certainly very hard. I feel reassured that I now know what to look for. The next talk was very entertaining and involved a demo and I managed a small glass of red wine. Prof Chris Cooper from Essex University whose book and talk were called 'Run, swim , throw, cheat' which was about doping in sports. Very topical in light of the recent Olympic games here this summer. In fact he was the media contact for the games. He drank a small bottle of coke thoughout his talk and had 6 disposable wine glasses and 2 bottles of a red berry drink to demonstrate how athletes can top up their blood count which technology these days can now detect anyway. He had to rush off so answered questions whilst he packed up his things. All in all I've had a good day one and am now all fired up about the festival. Went home happy wanting more.         

A methane rocket

Last Monday, that is 17the September, in one of our labs we gave the A level physics students their first science demo: a methane rocket! Always great fun for everyone. Our physics technician provided the empty drinks bottles and attached abit of plastic tubing on the outside of it with gaffer tape so that it could be threaded onto the string in the lab. Myself and a colleague as chemists were asked to generate the fuel :D we generated oxygen using manganese dioxide and 100% vol hydrogen peroxide. The rocket contained a 70:30 mixture of oxygen and methane which we of course got from he fumecupboard gas tap. This was great explosive fun and I can't believe we were allowed to do it indoors. This demo was the idea of our new physics teacher. Looks like were are in for a fun year if not an explosive one. I filmed it using my phones camera and thankfully I spoke softly enough for the mic to hardly pick up my voice. Here is that video I hope you enjoy. Perhaps you can tell me in the comments either here or on YouTube what you think? Is this a demo the kids would remember? I think I would :)

 

Goodbye Neil

Credit: Redorbit.com

Credit: ExploreMars.org

I was extremely saddened yesterday to hear that one of the great hero's of the 20th century had passed away. I am of course referring to the amazing Neil Armstrong the first man to ever set foot on the moon. He was 82. He may have avoided the limelight as often as he could and been a relucant hero, describing himself as 'just an engineer' but from now on the world has changed and is a poorer place without him.
Upon going to bed lastnight my partner asked me to bring into he room his bottle of favourite whisky. I was puzzled by this and didn't make the connection at first. Its not as if this is a weekend bedtime ritual of ours or anything. So, when I entered the bedroom with his bottle I saw he had 2 shot glasses ready and waiting by his bed. After expressing my puzzlement as I climbed into bed he said  this is to celebrate Neil, he was an important man'. This made me a tad emotional but so we sipped and reflected on this great mans life. My partner has always been interested in the planets and the Apollo Missions. He can talk in  great detail about it as if he were there! This is the only time we have ever carried out such a commemoration in this way.
On my early morning run today I saw the moon. Okay it was more or less daylight and rather faint but it was there so I looked up and winked as I trotted along, couldn't help but smile too even through the sadness. When I returned home I found my partner watching From The Earth to The Moon. I joined him and we watched it over breakfast. My partner has been watching such things in remembrance for most of the day. In the Shadow of The Moon was next.
Our heartfelt condolences to his family and friends at this time. RIP Neil Armstrong, and thank you. The world will not and cannot forget you. xxx

Do you remember the LOL's of the Apollo 11 mission?

As I was born in 1969, the year that man first set foot on the moon I of course have no recollection of this historic event but also, keeping track of how long ago this happened is obviously a no brainer for me. In todays world of tech and social media most users are familiar with many acronyms used as a shorthand tool in which LOL means 'Laughing Out Loud'. I am sure that they had lots of fun aboard Apollo 11 but back in the 1960's LOL mean't something entirely different. It stood for 'Little Old Ladies' and they had a crucial role to play in this mission. It is a pity we don't hear more about these unsung hero's well I never did until my other half mentioned them. I thank him for inspiring this blog post :) The LOL's worked for Raytheon (which co-incidentally my better did too once upon a time). Intrigued? Then read on, dear reader, read on! The computer for this mission was developed by MIT and looked like this:

Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC)
 
 

Initially it was thought that the AGC would only require 4KB of ROM (Read Only Memory) and 0.5KB of erasable random access memory (RAM) would be adequate. Perhaps it is just my humble opinion or the benefit of hindsight or something but that seems a bit naive to me. I am no computer whizz though so sorry if I'm wrong about that. As the software grew, the need for more ROM to store it on increased, so the final memory specs were 36KB ROM and 2KB of erasable memory. In those days, computer programmes were not stored on a hard disk in the modern style but in ROM which was fabricated by weaving a copper wire either through or around a tiny magnetic core. If a wire passed through a core it represented a '1' and around it a '0'. In this way, the software was painstakingly woven together by a team of women weavers at a factory. The team at MIT called it the 'LOL method' who threaded the cores in the Raytheon factory, core by core, wire by wire, bit by bit, the software programmes were woven into the hardware. Although if you ask me, they don't exactly look like old ladies to me.

 

 The end result was tough and space flight enviroment-resistant, and could be wrapped carefully into a relatively tiny space on board the space craft. The prototype designs looked like tangled pieces of rope so the team dubbed them  'rope memory'. It took approximately six weeks to manufacture a rope and so all programming had to be stopped six months prior to a mission, to allow time for manufacture and then testing before flight. Once the rope module had been produced alterations to the code were impossible. The computer's 2KB RAM needed to write and read live mission data and was manufactured from cores in this way with the '1's and '0's written temporarily to each core by using a high enough current to flip the cores magnetic direction between clockwise and counter-clockwise, and read using a second lower-powered pulse of current to sense this magnetic field direction. To make the most of this very limited erasable memory, different programmes running at different times used the same blocks of memory in a sort of  'time-share' way, overwriting each other as they ran.

close up of fine wiring achieved

core rope memory

a finished core rope memory

(Credit for images:Raytheon)

This computer was more akin to the modern computer system  in a car as opposed to a personal desktop or laptop computer with a QWERTY keyboard. I will leave you with one further piece of info which I found fascinating but which also amused my highly developed inner child. Back then the unit of memory in the AGC was the 'word'  (byte was never used). Sounds cool doesn't it? ;) The 'word' was made up of 15 bits for memory storage and 1 extra bit for error detection code called 'parity'. Interesting? What do you think? 

So thanks to the LOL's of Raytheon and to the Haynes Apollo 11 manual 

Cause to celebrate

Last Wednesday, 4th July, americans everywhere were quite rightly celebrating their independence day as usual. Happily however, in the science world there was another reason to celebrate! The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) particle detector at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland may have discovered the elusive Higgs Boson particle which understandably sent a wave of excitement and joy through physicists around the globe. As a scientist who has a couple of friends who are physicists I witnessed and felt their joy. One of said pals was close to tears bless her. I am a chemist but as I understand it, in physics there is a Standard Model made up of all particles in the universe. Most of these particles are known about eg electrons, protons, quarks etc. However there is a gap in this model, where the never before detected Higgs particle is thought to live. Physicists have been trying for over 50 years to find the Higgs Particle named after Dr Peter Higgs of Edinburgh university, UK who first theorised about the existence of a field which pervades everything in our universe. Here is a video fromFermilab which explains Higss Boson quite nicely. I like this explanation



Particle physicists and the LHC still have plenty of work to do. This new particle dectected at 125eV is thought to be the Higgs Boson and amounted to just a tiny blip on a graph. CERN still need to confirm that this is indeed the particle they have been looking for. The Standard Model is not quite complete and doesn't consider gravity. Will scientists now be on the lookout for the graviton particle? I will keep my eyes peeled on this story and also to see if Dr Higgs gets the Nobel Prize he deserves. Could it happen for him this year? I truly hope so. I realise I wasn't as quick off the mark as many people have been in commenting on this discovery but if it is the Higgs and the scientists involved are 99.999999% sure it is, then this momentous ocassion will no doubt be talked about for many many years to come.  I will leave you with this video from The Big Bang Theory in which Dr Sheldon Cooper is attempting to explain using pictures what a Higgs Boson particle is, to the layperson, namely Penny.I hope you enjoy and thanks for reading

http://youtu.be/W4LZRLdyQl4

Transit of Venus 2012

On June 6th this past Wednesday a historical event occurred. Namely the planet Venus would be clearly visible travelling passed our sun. A once in a lifetime event which won't happen again  until 2117. I feared that my camera phone wouldn't get a very good image but that didn't matter as I had technical issues with it in the end anyway. I wasn't too disappointed because just as I expected Twitter was all, well twittery about this, the astronomers of course being especially excited. Therefore I was expecting to see great photo's and I certainly was NOT disappointed. It doesn't matter what field of science you are from or indeed wether you are a scientist or not, who isn't in awe of our magnificent universe? Just as I imagined, thankfully and gratefully, there are many magnificent photographs and indeed YouTube videos of Venus gracefully making her way by the Sun. I love the internet and I think it is absolutely amazing that no matter where you are in the world (almost) you can witness this marvel and document it in some way and then share it with the rest of humanity online.
As I unfortunately didn't capture the moment I have searched the web for some fab pictures. I made a discovery which pleases me and makes me very proud. I didn't know this because even though I love the history of science I am a chemist and not directly involved with any field which does study the universe. My wonderful discovery was that back in 1639 the first transit of Venus was observed by a local (to me) amateur astronomer from Salford named William Crabtree. I found a beautiful painting of him making this very observation and here it is. I wish I could find out who painted it so I could give him proper credit.

There are lots of amazing photo's on the web of Wednesday's transit. Here are some beautiful pix I found on just the first page I looked at. I think this are glorious and I'm sure you dear reader if you've looked have found many more yourself.  I hope you enjoy these anyway

(Credit: Dreadnetcentral.com)

(Credit: Shellee/WV Outpost)

 


 


 Facebook has an entire page devoted to this so you can find more gems there

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Transit-of-Venus-2012/220307631417305

(Credit: nj.com/Bullit Marquez)

(Credit: HD image by NASA Goddard)

                                                                
For the nerds enquiring minds amongst us

(Credit: NASA)

(www.hko.gov.hk)

I'll finish with one of my favourite photo's. I think it looks rather like a scene in a western, perhaps a closing scene with the sun going down. Do you agree or am I wrong? :)

(Credit: Douglas Brown/The Denver Post)