Wally Broecker gave a seminar at the department today. It is always strange when you actually see the person whose voice you have been imagining off the page for so long. As climate is not may passion, I wasn't as weak at the knees as some people were, but it is like meeting the pope of climate/oceanography/geochemical tracers etc. (Of course if the real pope was anything like Wally the world would probably be a much saner place). He was really charming, not at all arrogant and gave an interesting talk. I've decided I'm more interested in the isotope systematics of the tracers rather than the details of what ocean circulation may be doing. I can't think who at the moment would be my ultimate Earth Sciences "top person" to meet. Hmmm.
We also had Steve Sparks visiting which was another fairly constant name during my undergraduate. So this week has been fairly big name stuff.
I was asking various people in the common room today if they would, given the opportunity, go to Mars but without the option of returning. No one gave an unqualified yes; I did without hesitation. I think the experience of being on another planet and being able to discover and describe a new world, outweighs any of the conditions (other people etc) for me. This probably means I have quite strongly developed hermetical tendencies but it is extremely unlikely to happen anyway (probability 1 in 10^20).
Science News of the Day
A kilo may no longer be a kilo!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7084099.stm
My understanding of the details of the watt balance method aren't great, but from the description in the article it appears that gravitational force is involved. Well the acceleration due to gravity varies latitudally and with geology (mass of mountains etc) so the location on the globe would have to become part of the standard. It may be that this has been compensated for; the detail has just been left out in this mass media article.
We also had Steve Sparks visiting which was another fairly constant name during my undergraduate. So this week has been fairly big name stuff.
I was asking various people in the common room today if they would, given the opportunity, go to Mars but without the option of returning. No one gave an unqualified yes; I did without hesitation. I think the experience of being on another planet and being able to discover and describe a new world, outweighs any of the conditions (other people etc) for me. This probably means I have quite strongly developed hermetical tendencies but it is extremely unlikely to happen anyway (probability 1 in 10^20).
Science News of the Day
A kilo may no longer be a kilo!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7084099.stm
My understanding of the details of the watt balance method aren't great, but from the description in the article it appears that gravitational force is involved. Well the acceleration due to gravity varies latitudally and with geology (mass of mountains etc) so the location on the globe would have to become part of the standard. It may be that this has been compensated for; the detail has just been left out in this mass media article.
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