The unified photon spectrum
Russell Turner 1989, Laganch 1995, Henry 2002
Andrew Jaffe presented this chart in his guest lecture today - it shows the entire light energy density in the universe. Over 99% of this light energy is from the big bang.
Hydrogen in the early universe
The whiteboard after a conversation with cosmologist JP about the story of hydrogen in the early universe and what we might learn from studying the 21cm electromagnetic wave emitted due to the electron spin flip transition.
Explaining Relativity - Rebecca Elson
Forget the clatter of ballistics,
The monologue of falling stones,
The sharp vectors
And the stiff numbered grids.
It's so much more a thing of pliancy, persuasion,
Where space might cup itself around a planet
Like your palm around a stone,
Where you, yourself the planet,
Caught up in some geodesic dream,
Might wake to feel it enfold your weight
And know there is, in fact, no falling.
It is this, and the existence of limits.
(received from an astrophysicist this morning)
Ginsberg: Poem Rocket
Extracts from 'Poem Rocket'
This is my rocket my personal rocket I send up my message
Beyond
Someone to hear me there
My immortality
without steel or cobalt basalt or diamond gold or mercurial fire
without passports filing cabinets bits of paper warheads
without myself finally
pure thought
message all and everywhere the same
I send up my rocket to land on whatever planet awaits it
preferably religious sweet planets no money
fourth dimensional planets where Death shows movies
plants speak (courteously) of ancient physics and poetry itself is manufactured by the trees
the final Planet where the Great Brain of the Universe sits waiting for a poem to land in His Golden pocket
joining the other notes mash-notes love-sighs complaints-musical shrieks of despair and the million unutterable thoughts of frogs
The moon over Imperial College and a brilliantly lit planet.....
Models of light
This morning's visit to the MSc optics lab with Peter Torok revealed this fantastic model for visualising the effect of a lense on light. Regard the lens positioned perpendicular to surface, to the left of the model. The highest peak is the focal point. These days, students usually see this rendered in 3-d on computer.
above - move optics lab
above - a model of the surface of light waves made in 1876, based on Fresnel's work in the 1820's on crystal optics. The surface represents a wave front of light radiating from a point in a crystal: Two shells touch each other in four places. (displayed in the Science Museum).
below - my shadow, south ken wall
Beautiful surface
Found in the mathematics section of the Science Museum, this model was used in the late ninteenth century to illustrate lectures on equations. It is the surface for: Z=3a(x2-y2)-(x3+y3)
The blue line is a straight line, the green lines are ellipses, the red lines are parabolas, the black and yellow lines - cubic equations and the dark red line - a simple contour line.
Models like this inspired artists like Henry Moore and Max Ernst.