Peter Hill Explains

This is a film review. I discussed the cinematic devices and establishment of the conceptual language of the film that underpins its coherence. MP4 recording     MP3 recording -- -- Your browser does not support the audio element.

This 90 minute podcast is a difficult listen. The key problem is a almost religious adherence to a 2.8.8.18 electron configuration, and moving beyond the simple "Got it Wrong! Ha Ha!" response that may assure you would be fool hardy to try on, unless you had a motor bike handy to out run the lynch mob that would pursue you. Instead, you are in a society... something really weird is going down ... it time to melt into the background, get out the note pad and capture the totality of what is going on and hit those anthropology text books as the tribe going off with the fairies. I remember now it is Professor Tasker who is a key player in the 2.8.8.18 delusion, and really a key enigmatic character that makes you throw out the rule books and realize the scope of the mission to but the science back in science education. It would be hard to follow the audio, but I am re-framing the strategic dimensions of the problem. I am project planning just how we get an enduring quantum foundation in place before we go about the making quantum mechanics the soul of education and displacing cherished tenets. MP4 recording     MP3 recording -- -- Your browser does not support the audio element.

There are two input mode changes, and a clean up of bugs in synthetic quizzes. The podcast itself is recorded while walking at about 3 am coming out of the national park, going down the side and ascending Glenbrook gorge. So over all the quality is not where I would like it, but I have to at least attempt to push myself through rehab. The picture is now emerging that the 12 hour operations really knock your head around. I had one, then there was the eventual waiting for the dust to settle and in for a redo. The redo was held back a little, or at least really weighed up and I can now see that the double hit really hit.  Now the first thing I supposed to note is that you don't miss your decline in mental capacity. It is really there in front of you. However supporter people don't listen too deeply only saying it will get better.  It takes so much effort, and it is only when you load things in and then go to process it you realize you have a totally leaky bucket up there.  I knew I was struggling when I went to a social robotic seminar. I took heaps of notes furiously, I was also aware that the business men and leaders at this business school were not taking in any information. They were there to just notch up episodic stimulus. The ability to contain the thoughts for the next day had gone, the reformulation was still useful but things had changed. Hence the need not to be board during rehab. On the physical front, there is the need to build endurance, the need to develop flexibility and the desperate need to knock of kilos. The last is hard as the activity focus had meant mental fatigue. One hour podcasting, reading from a magazine, hit the limit as I yawn and nearly fall asleep. Don't worry about the listeners yet. It is like a piece of music, where you rehearse segments, practice key pieces learn key skill, go for complete rehearsals, then dress rehearsals. The change in input mode is the extended blog write up. The steps to podcast into audacity and the cleanup of bugs are procedural. There may be interest in listening to this, but the key for me is the extended write up and structuring it successfully. I will think about this. MP4 recording     MP3 recording -- -- Your browser does not support the audio element.

Systems test  Better initial production Well it is better recording directly into audacity and it looks as if I will just need a better mike. I am getting my head around the composition of explanations.  It looks best I write notes whilst giving explanations. The huge advantage here is tagging the sections and this radically reduces the rework time, down load into audacity etc. Then there is the clean up of the audacity output. After a break of a week I was surprised to see it so stable. I can now clear the work areas so the extraction doesn't get confused with earlier versions. Leaving the old stuff there lets me test the next sections independently. Now at this time I only put in two questions for the quiz, and I was pleased it picked this up and changed the various broadcast programs appropriately. On the production run through it reported a disturbing number of missing files it couldn't find, but I had a listen to the first couple of synthetic podcast programs and I couldn't spot the problem. This is why I am reluctant to put in an intelligent error trapping as you can go along with a false sense of security. I am disturbed by the error messages but I don't have them going into a log file. I will schedule 1 or 2 quiz productions per week and hopefully get a few teachers producing them and we will see what is necessary for building a class resource.  I don't think we are at the test it on live students yet. This production showed me the yawning gulf between rigorous science and what is passed of in schools. In the first question you have the misconception that heat is buoyant. I know teacher who have gravity acting through the gravitational field and needless to say have a blank stare when anyone talks about scalar, vector and tensor fields. Then even the second question covers molar volume, and how we can pick the relative density of different types of gas. I have to do a range of tweaks to all the software to reduce the number of key strokes. I really have to lock into a production routine.  Then there is the high level problems of navigating a range of common misconceptions to get cut through explanations.  I imagine but I haven't thought it through that there is certain structural points in an explanation. The misconception issue is a hard one for two reasons: just moving up on a misconception is tricky is one reason, while the other is that there is the emotional attachment people have to these things and you don't want to trigger a labyrinth of personal thinking and defensiveness before you have got everything laid out. I have got the automation of sorts to blogger, wordpress, twitter and the like. The automation of Mobile apps is not there.  I just can figure how to place in Quizzes so they are not cluttering the space. You may notice I am writing more in the Podcasts. This basically because I have to move on from the typing speed tests. Quiz ToolboxBuoyancy:Orientation Buoyancy:Test on your phone or in your car Buoyancy:Play this for a class test Buoyancy:Just the information Welcome to the Quiz Toolbox for Left click to play any of that above files. Right click and select "save link as", then select your devices drive or your USB to download and play on the go or in class. To down load right click "save link as" the following link. Buoyancy:All files

Reading from New Scientist whilst at Aqua Golf. Hear a large flock of birds making a din whilst the gentle folk of Western Sydney pay good money to tee off into a smallish dam. I get to read you a few articles. Some need challenging before they make it to print. I am still reflecting on the last episode where there is it appears that the laws of thermodynamics are broken. It is so disturbing to hear this. MP4 recording     MP3 recording -- -- Your browser does not support the audio element.

This is a must do experiment for everyone. It goes like this. First get a copper rod about an arms length long hook it up to a current source so you can run -3 to 0 to 3 amps through it. Second heat it up with a Bunsen burner in the middle. Third, measure the temperature drop as it cools along its length further from the flame. Fourth run a current through the copper and see the temperature rise and fall either side of the flame. This podcast will driving will get you in the car with me as I toddle along into a dust storm, get a big warning about a fallen tree, and then surprise later on about a fallen tree. Listen as I muddle through, puzzled as to why something so simple, so moving, so thought and career provoking isn't cutting through. My answer is lots of little baby steps, lots of them but in parallel and strategically aligned. I am thinking it terms of dissipation, boundaries and other terms. How to build it forward. I have in my mind a mathematical model managing the diffusion rather than the political cut through of new ideas. In this case this is a good 160 year old, and its sidelining has placed it centre stage in my mind's theater MP4 recording     MP3 recording -- -- Your browser does not support the audio element.

NASA is only interested in the most minimal way of partnering with a firm that is going to look for life in one of Saturn's moons. The image of the moon shows recent geological activity has erased regions of craters, while craters appear to follow an arc. This is far from random and actually interesting to look at. I am a little disturbed by the idea of a heat pump being more efficient than simply heating a house. It must be correct if whole countries are adopting heat pump technology. I am troubled by the statement that it appears to break the laws of thermodynamics. Simply put it is a standard reverse cycle air conditioner. We have solar panel and a lot trees around our property. Natural gas is a bit of a nightmare in terms of cost. It has certainly got me thinking. MP4 recording     MP3 recording -- -- Your browser does not support the audio element.

Sophie Blanchard floated through the French Revolution, Napoleon and eventually fell to earth in her flaming balloon. Hot air, a temperature greater than its surroundings is less dense than its surroundings. This means that heavier gas flows into the volume it occupies pushing the air upwards. The interplay of gravity and density are the magic ingredients of what we term convection. Now if the material involved contains energy, then the motion of material means the motion of energy. Heating things up in a gravitation field does lead to convection, but a lighter gas at the bottom of a column also experiences this effect. If you were to split diatomic oxygen (16 +16 = 32 u - unified atomic mass) into atomic oxygen (16 u) this lighter gas would rise, not because it is hotter but in the system having something more massive lower in a gravitation field at the expense of something less massive is a lower energy state. Here the term field describes where gravity is and not the action of gravity. The field refers to a volume I am thinking off and at every location in that volume the force of gravity act. Now splitting oxygen molecules into atoms can be done, but very quickly the oxygen sticks back together or sticks to something else meaning splitting does not last that long. But it is possible to deactivate the two binding sites of oxygen with light weight plugs and this will float. The plugs have to be lighter than oxygen, because that would mean the total weight would be heavier than two oxygen. We can plug it with hydrogen, then it will float. This will float, convect, up, high up into the air until ... it becomes.... clouds. Clouds are up there due to convection, and due to gravity. The cloud goes up, the balloon goes up because the air that it is heavier than is falling down. Clouds float because of gravity. Before returning to France and the first balloon flights let's go to the international space station (ISS). Here a cup of tea is a real drama. On earth the flame heats the bottom of the water, and thank you very much that little bit of water, is a little bit hot, and politely makes way for denser cold water, which is a little bit colder. This polite interchange enables the orderly distribution of heat through out all the pan of water being heated. Now chew on this, water does not rise because it is hot, it rises because it is less dense. Now the opposite could happen if we could some how make something more dense when it heated up. Then if we applied the heat at the top it would sink to the bottom. Will scientist ever do this? Well, if we look to the ice sheets in Greenland (a Danish territory in the Atlantic Ocean, thinking of Independence with the aid of Chinese money) we see ponds of water melting under the sun. The ice is white, due to the many little fractures inside scattering the light (you know that your ice cubes in your drink is transparent) . Light hits the cracks and gets scattered back into space, or into the explorers eyes causing snow blindness. Not so for liquid water, there are no cracks and most of the light energy is absorbed. The water heats up and falls off the ice down crevices. Worst of all when it finds its way to the base of the ice-sheet, the ice-sheet floats and rolls into the sea. Back in the space station, lighting a match is a problem as convection the normally draws fresh oxygen into the radical molecule zone (flame) isn't at work. Now it is not that there is no gravity, it is nearly the same as it is on earth - sitting at about 90 %. If there is gravity things accelerate (that's Einstein's insight) and in the space station things are accelerating, falling and thankfully not hitting the ground. To quote Douglas Adam, it is being thrown at the ground and missing. So everything is busy falling, and there is not much difference between any two objects. Lets get back to the pan. The water would stick inside due to surface tension. Then the point near the heat source would heat, and heat, no convect

This is a real test of my memory to write this so long after. There is an article and editorial about genetic selection for intelligence. I read it and just quietly think the human race is doomed. The wrap up of the US elections implementing piece meal energy policy is food for thought. The "Cow" space explosion is food for thought MP4 recording     MP3 recording -- -- Your browser does not support the audio element.

There are simple experiments that let quantum mystery gently tap students on the shoulder. I am fascinated by the Thomson Effect, that heat can be moved with electric current. I love the intensity of sensing the Fermi surfaces. I feel how this experiment will respond to the amount of current and type of material. The doors it could open. I really wonder what the effect will be on the minds and imagination of students. There are others I talk through while driving home. So please forgive the intrusion of the the traffic indicators and of the traffic itself. MP4 recording     MP3 recording -- -- Your browser does not support the audio element.