Isn’t it crazy that one of the most wonderful concepts in Physics – the dual nature of light – doesn’t get a better deal from the leaving cert physics syllabus? Students are expected to know how to demonstrate that light is a wave, and also to be able to recall Einstein’s interpretation of the Photoelectric […]
For anyone out there interested in educating themselves on all things nuclear. I teach this as two seperate chapters for Leaving Cert Physics. I would like to think that by studying the notes on the two chapters plus watching the associated links you would actually be in a position to answer any leaving cert questions […]
We have always assumed that ‘we’ will be around forever; not only that but we wonder how long it will be before we can colonise other planets and solar systems. We conveniently ignore the fact that our being here in the first place may be nothing more that the fortutitous result of an incredible set of […]
Criticising our education system is not new – why would it be when it’s like shooting fish in a barrel? One of the better known recent commentaries came from Sir Ken Robinson at a TED conference a few years back who made a very convincing argument for changing our focus away from the academic subjects and instead develop a greater emphasis […]
For many years now many of my brightest and best students have gone on to study Engineering, despite my best efforts to the contrary. I consider an engineer to be a physicist who has lost his sense of wonder. By the way, do you know where the term ‘civil engineer’ comes from? Apparently it was […]
The Colours of Infinity is a wonderful title for any documentary so it is only right and proper that the program itself lives up to the title. I show parts of it to Transition Years in an attempt to stimulate a sense of wonder for Mathematics. It by no means manages to undo the damage […]
science.ie is currently hosting a survey of readers to find out what they consider to be the greatest mystery in Science. The leader by quite some way is “How did the universe begin?” The theme for this year’s Science Week is “Our place in space“, and no doubt thousands of students will spend an hour […]
Sometimes I think I’d gladly be locked up in a dungeon ten fathoms below ground, if in return I could find out one thing: What is light? Galileo, from the play Life of Galileo, by Bertolt Brecht The single greatest source of debate among physicists in the early decades of the last century was to […]
Pretty much self-explanatory. This one is about the somewhat tricky concept of how to create both matter and time. Mind you I’m not sure Science is doing much better at an explanation, but we tend to hide that little fact behind a barrage of highly technical and long-winded sentences so it’s not so obvious. And […]
Tagline: This series is part of World of Wonder – a year of Science across the BBC in 2010. From popular science to Chaos Theory, there’s a little something for everyone. Did you know that the BBC has a Science homepage? It’s called “World of Wonder” – what a cool title. You see the BBC […]
