I can remember my first day at Surrey very vividly, it rained. In fact it rained everyday for 6 ½ weeks. At the time I wasn’t really sure where I wanted to be after the 4 years, but somewhere dry was at the top of my list. As it turns out the University of Surrey […]
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Over the summer I went to a couple of conferences and in one I enjoyed a talk by a Barcelona-based British scientist called Ben Lehner. It featured an interesting idea, and Lionel Messi. I guess if you work in Barcelona, Lionel Messi is your go to guy if you want to illustrate an idea; in […]
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On Friday an atmospheric scientist I know from the University of Leeds, Ben Murray, gave a talk on his research. His research is on how ice forms in the atmosphere. It was very interesting, and one of the things I learnt is how big the atmosphere is, and how high up some clouds are. The image above is taken from the International Space Station and at the top of the image are what are called noctilucent clouds.
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By one increasingly common measure of how good you are as a scientist, I am twice as good a scientist as Tisha the (now sadly late) hamster. Beating a dead hamster in a field that apparently requires high levels of intelligence is quite unsatisfying. The measure is the average number of references people have made […]
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Yesterday I ran the physics bit of a University Open Day for prospective students, and so I talked to a lot of prospective students and their parents, we had about 100 visit the department. I chatted about personal statements to one of them. Today I read in The Guardian that apparently there are companies that […]
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For more 15 years I taught the level 3 Physics of Stars course at Surrey, because of my lifelong amateur interest in astronomy. This was kindled because my father, Paul Murdin, is an astronomer. Some of the best memories I have from childhood are of going with him to observatories, either looking up at the […]
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