Tuesday 22nd July Networks Dr Mark Walters http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percolation_theory In mathematics, percolation theory describes the behaviour of connected clusters in a random graph. The above image shows a three-dimensional site percolation graph. Consider the two dimensional graph below showing islands in a river connected by bridges. Imagine that each bridge has a half chance of getting […]
Read more "Goldsmiths’ 2014 Mathematics"Tuesday 22nd July Latin Squares and related combinatorial designs Professor L H Soicher Recreational maths can lead to lots of different applications. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudoku Sudoku (originally called Number Place, is a logic-based, combinatorial number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9 × 9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of […]
Read more "Goldsmiths’ 2014 Mathematics"Monday 21st July Hyper-complex numbers Dr Alex Fink but why stop there? Mind your is and js and ks What happens when you go beyond complex numbers? Answer: Going further means sacrificing some properties of numbers such as A complex number is a number that can be expressed in the form a + bi, where […]
Read more "Goldsmiths’ 2014 Mathematics"Monday 21st July Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors Dr Robert Johnson This is a subject that students find very difficult to get motivated with. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eigenvalues_and_eigenvectors http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E63wnzYHYc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4N8vJpf7hM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdsV0RaC9jM http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/23312/what-is-the-importance-of-eigenvalues-eigenvectors http://anothermathgeek.hubpages.com/hub/What-the-Heck-are-Eigenvalues-and-Eigenvectors An eigenvalue is a number that is derived from a square matrix. A square matrix is itself just a collection of n rows of n numbers. An […]
Read more "Goldsmiths’ 2014 Mathematics"http://www.thegoldsmiths.co.uk/charity-education/education/science-for-society-courses/mathematics/ Monday 21st July Introduction This course took place in the mathematical sciences building of Queen Mary University of London. It looked at the mathematics behind applications as diverse as cryptography, drug testing and the internet. The course included a mix of lectures and workshops, with an introduction to mathematical computing using the Maple package […]
Read more "Goldsmiths’ 2014 Mathematics"Tour of the Laboratories http://www.begbroke.ox.ac.uk/SiteMap.php Dr Frank Dillon kindly let us have a look at his laboratory and talked to us about nanotubes and his work with them. He joined the Nanomaterials Group in the Department of Materials, Oxford University in July 2008. He is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry and of […]
Read more "Begbroke Nano Teachers’ Day"It’s Different for Girls How can parents support the take-up of A-level physics by girls? A briefing sheet Research published by the Institute of Physics shows that a shocking 46% of schools in England sent no girls on to study A-level physics in 2011. Physics graduates earn salaries well above the average and the subject […]
Read more "Girls in Physics"Solar cells http://cnx.org/contents/dd0537a2-fb5d-439d-8feb-bf2e50656dae@1 Semiconductor solar cells In physics lessons we tend to just look at semiconductor solar cells. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell A solar cell (also called a photovoltaic cell) is an electrical device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect. It is a form of photoelectric cell, defined as a device […]
Read more "Begbroke Nano Teachers’ Day"Making gold and silver nanoparticles I was truly amazed when we were shown the range of colours that silver nanoparticles can produce depending on their size. http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2010/jm/c0jm01990a/unauth#divAbstract We were shown pictures of the different colours. I found the above image from the above web link. Each colour is caused by different size silver nanoparticles suspended […]
Read more "Begbroke Nano Teachers’ Day"These activities aimed at finding ways of experiencing the nano world and gaining confidence in using numbers to explain what we can’t see. We have nanodetectors built into our bodies. Our noses are particularly good. We can smell something such as dilute perfume without actually seeing it. To prove this we were given some scented […]
Read more "Begbroke Nano Teachers’ Day"
helen the hare 