Brendan Moyle • Apr 21, 2017 •
The Cyclone Last Thursday (13th April) Cyclone Cook arrived. As a precaution, places in Auckland closed. Including Massey’s Albany campus at 11.00 am. In the end the path of the Cyclone (for Auckland) was a little too easterly and we escaped most of the havoc. Bad weather also can generate interesting seascapes, so I decided to try my luck at … Read More
Guest Work • May 09, 2016 •
By Simon Albert, The University of Queensland; Alistair Grinham, The University of Queensland; Badin Gibbes, The University of Queensland; Javier Leon, University of the Sunshine Coast, and John Church, CSIRO Sea-level rise, erosion and coastal flooding are some of the greatest challenges facing humanity from climate change. Recently at least … Read More
Marcus Wilson • May 06, 2015 •
There's no hiding my conflicts of interest here. I'm on the New Zealand Institute of Physics 2015 conference organizing committee. I'm also the NZIP treasurer. And I'm a staff member at the host organization. So, to contribute to the New Zealand physics community's biennial event in Hamilton on 6 - 8 July, click on this link. … Read More
Marcus Wilson • Mar 17, 2014 •
So, as I said, it appears that it's awfully hard to hide a commercial airliner from military radar. But let's backtrack a bit. Why do aircraft carry transponders? (What is a transponder?) There are a couple of reasons here. First, we need to look at a big problem with radar. It has limited range. We can see this … Read More
Marcus Wilson • Mar 11, 2014 •
One of the questions on everyone's lips at the moment is "How does a large passenger jet simply disappear from radar without trace?" It is clearly very distressing for anyone with friends or relatives on board - not knowing what has happened. As I write this, there still seems to be a complete lack of clear evidence pointing one … Read More
Marcus Wilson • Oct 21, 2013 •
A highlight of the recent NZ Institute of Physics conference was the Dan Walls medal talk given by Matt Visser. Matt has been working on general relativity. That's not desparately unusual for a physicist, but Matt has been successful in working on some of the crazier aspects of relativity and getting it published - wormholes, dumb holes … Read More
Marcus Wilson • Mar 01, 2013 •
I've been perusing YouTube looking for good videos illustrating wave packets - which are bunches of waves containing different wavelengths. I want to come up with a good illustration for a second year physics paper on introductory quantum theory.... Read More
Marcus Wilson • Feb 22, 2013 •
While generally speaking I'm very pleased to hear physics words appear in everyday conversation, I would prefer for them to be used approximately correctly. 'Exponentially' is a case in point - it gets used for something that keeps getting bigger... Read More
Marcus Wilson • Nov 22, 2012 •
Physicsworld magazine is doing a 'special feature' this month on animal superheroes - those with rather unusual physical abilities.The best of the lot (in my subjective opinion) is the featured-on-the-cover mantis shrimp. Not because of its 'dactyl clu... Read More
Marcus Wilson • Jan 04, 2012 •
While waiting for my aged computer to boot-up on my return to work this morning, I was skimming through November's Physics World magazine, and noted an obituary to Rudolf Mossbauer.He is best known in the physics world for observing 'resonance absorption' of gamma rays, and then developing the technique of Mossbauer spectroscopy.When a nucleus undergoes gamma decay, it … Read More