Munzly the Hermit

My Shoggoth - Great song!

2009-09-10T09:27:11+02:00

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LecGuQE6t44

For More: http://www.tomsmithonline.com/index.html

Lyrics: http://www.tomsmithonline.com/lyrics/index.html

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Quote of the Day

2009-08-24T15:46:06+02:00

Quote of the Day:

I was watching the London Marathon and saw one runner dressed as a chicken and another runner dressed as an egg. I thought: 'This could be interesting'.

Paddy Lennox

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Get your open mind here!

2009-05-15T09:59:46+02:00

Open-mindedness
Uploaded by totocacapouet. - Discover more science and tech videos.

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Smart Energy Meters

2009-05-13T10:20:30+02:00

It's important that the consumer makes their voice heard regarding Smart Meters, otherwise we might all get shafted by the Power Companies.

SEE: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/13/smart_meters_not_so_smart/page2.html

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Oink! Oink! Oink?

2009-05-11T08:04:10+02:00

Swine Flu hits Parliament:

Now Dave the Dreary said "Never worry!
Just open your mouths and say you are sorry
not 'Oink! Oink! Oink?'"

But all he got from the snouts in the trough
was "Oh by Gordon, we've not got enough,"
and "Oink! Oink! Oink?"

If it amuses you, do feel free to pass it on.
Munzly the Hermit

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Dante and Beatrice

2009-04-04T15:24:14+02:00

Dante and Beatrice by Henry Holiday (1839 - 1927)- Painted in 1883 and in full size print format displayed on the wall in our front hall throughout my childhood - gives me a weird feeling every time I look at it:

My mother had it on the wall because it was by her standards, "pleasantly pornographic," except she had a more polite way of putting it. It was in a heavy dark oak frame traditionally hung on a chain from the picture rail, above a large dark oak blanket box with a galleon carved on the lid, and the box was flanked between a pair of dark oak Jacobean style chairs with high carved backs and barley-twist legs. Altogether a most romantic ensemble that must certainly have coloured my young imagination.

Repeat of previous blog for new readers.

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MUSIC! - but who's teaching who?

2009-04-03T10:23:30+02:00

If you ever endured music lessons at school, don't you wish they were like this....

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London Landmarks - Fixed and Mobile

2009-04-02T08:58:00+02:00

There is a curious science-fiction serial often repeated on BBC Radio 7, which features a Routemaster Bus as a sort of Tardis. Perhaps this is it passing Big Ben.

The Classic View of a Routemaster

Click on the image for a great website with lots of pictures
(and a sound track - so may be slow loading)

Repeat of previous blog for new readers.

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Merc on the Beach

2009-04-02T07:34:20+02:00

Following my posting of a cute picture of the Singer Roadster, here's a driver's dream of an altogether more serious nature:

Repeat of previous blog for new readers.

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A Singer, but not of a song

2009-04-02T07:30:10+02:00

My grandfather, whose tall tales often appear in this blog, was briefly the owner of one of the larger Singer motorcars, nothing like so cute and chummy looking as the illustration below.

SINGER ROADSTER
Artwork by Peter McKercher - click image for more data

My grandfather's Singer was a late 1920s saloon and seemed comfortable and well mannered, at least at first. Being a young man at the time with wife and son to impress, he decided to set forth on a trip from Norwich to Holt. He made that choice because there were then a number of features along that road that made it ideal for testing the performance of a new vehicle: A long section of straight road, some nice winding bits with tight bends and the steepest hill in Norfolk apart from Kett's and Gas Hills in Norwich.

The advantage of the hill on the Edgefield approach to Holt was that there was a good downhill run, then a thrilling humpback bridge to test the suspension (not to mention the alimentary stability of the passengers) then the hill itself, a long straight climb of almost eighty feet. Yes, I know, but this is Norfolk!

The Singer car company had always managed to promise more than it could deliver. They named their 9hp (850cc) small sports tourer the "Le Mans" when it stood no chance of success, or even qualifying for entry in such a race (eventually they did get there but only by designing a larger car with a 1.5 litre engine. They finished 7th and 8th in 1934.) The saloon bought by my grandfather seemed fine on the straight, not too bad on the bends, fairly well damped on the bridge, but abysmal on the hill.

Too much bodywork, or too little engine, was the verdict. They did get to the town of Holt but only after discovering that reverse gear had a lower ratio than first, which brought them to the summit, but wrong end first. It must have been very tempting to have flipped off the handbrake, coasted back down the hill and gone home. I suspect it was only an urgent need to sample Holt's excellent collection of teashops, that kept them on course.

Previous blog repeated for new readers.

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Quote for the Day

2009-03-31T12:35:44+02:00

TDG - Quote of the Day:

It is not getting any smarter out there. You need to come to terms with stupidity and make it work for you.

Frank Zappa

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A Fractal Angle on Quantum Physics

2009-03-30T16:34:54+02:00

Can fractals make sense of the quantum world?
by Mark Buchanan
New Scientist Magazine, 30 March 2009.

QUANTUM theory just seems too weird to believe. Particles can be in more than one place at a time. They don't exist until you measure them. Spookier still, they can even stay in touch when they are separated by great distances.

Einstein thought this was all a bit much, believing it to be evidence of major problems with the theory, as many critics still suspect today. Quantum enthusiasts point to the theory's extraordinary success in explaining the behaviour of atoms, electrons and other quantum systems. They insist we have to accept the theory as it is, however strange it may seem.

But what if there were a way to reconcile these two opposing views, by showing how quantum theory might emerge from a deeper level of non-weird physics?

If you listen to physicist Tim Palmer, it begins to sound plausible. What has been missing, he argues, are some key ideas from an area of science that most quantum physicists have ignored: the science of fractals, those intricate patterns found in everything from fractured surfaces to oceanic flows (see What is a fractal?).

Take the mathematics of fractals into account, says Palmer, and the long-standing puzzles of quantum theory may be much easier to understand. They might even dissolve away.

It is an argument that is drawing attention from physicists around the world. "His approach is very interesting and refreshingly different," says physicist Robert Spekkens of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada. "He's not just trying to reinterpret the usual quantum formalism, but actually to derive it from something deeper."

Click here for full article.

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Bubble blowing Dolphins

2009-03-15T09:37:37+01:00

An amazing trick invented by dolphins - see REUTERS

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Virtual World Builder

2009-03-12T18:34:30+01:00

Here's a treat not to be missed:

World Builder from Bruce Branit on Vimeo.

Echoed from TDG http://www.dailygrail.com/

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British Telecom - the Ba$t&rds!

2009-03-03T12:09:56+01:00

BT may have your broadband boobs/testicles in a vice - they can now charge what they like to retailers of their proposed high-speed fibre network
CLICK HERE for details.

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Uncertainty Principle? Not any longer!

2009-01-21T13:06:16+01:00

ScienceDaily (Jan. 15, 2009) — University of Toronto quantum physicists Jeff Lundeen and Aephraim Steinberg have shown that Hardy's paradox, a proposal that has confounded physicists for over a decade, can be confirmed and ultimately resolved, a task which had seemingly been impossible to perform.

More HERE

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Coming Attraction!

2009-01-13T16:57:03+01:00

APOPHIS

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Miracle of Flight - Terry Guilliam

2009-01-02T11:00:36+01:00

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Little Lost Robot

2009-01-01T13:50:00+01:00

General Motors - Super Bowl Ad
Uploaded by sabotage

Of course, any cowboy car-maker can offer a great warranty, if they know they'll be gone in a couple of months. Hee-hee!

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Memories of Spike

2008-12-27T17:17:17+01:00

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Join my Christmas Party

2008-12-25T15:26:58+01:00

Great song, but just wait for the dancing.....

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Common Sense Quantum Physics

2008-12-17T15:33:08+01:00

Common Sense Quantum Physics
Author: Arjen Dijksman graduate of Delft University of Technology.

1. Polarization:

2. Schrodinger Equation:

3. Planck's Quantum Action:

More: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Making_sense_of_quantum_mechanics
and Text versions: http://commonsensequantum.blogspot.com/2008_08_01_archive.html

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SPACE - as imagined in the 1940s

2008-12-17T07:16:13+01:00

Ground breaking space-art from the 1940s.

Above: Painting of Saturn as imagined from its moon Titan (1944)
Below: The imagined surface of Mars (1949), showing the persistence of the 'Martian Canals' ideas of astronomer Percival Lowell in the late 1800s.

Both paintings by Chesley Bonestell (1 January 1888 - 11 June 1986)

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Professor Cleese strikes again

2008-12-16T14:52:12+01:00

Philosophies of consciousness and the basics of neuroscience:

Echoed from TGD - a great source of alternative ideas.

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Parliamentary voting

2008-12-15T16:18:42+01:00

Here's a good question: Why don't MPs get a secret vote?

I thought they represented their constituents, but if their votes are known to their fellow MPs and their party officials, then they have to toe the party line even if that is not the way they know their constituents would have wanted them to vote. Surely a secret ballot would be more democratic?

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2000 year old computer

2008-12-12T20:18:37+01:00

A working model of an ancient computer was recently recreated in London.

Antikythera mechanism

Jeff Hawkins: Brain science is about to fundamentally change computing

2008-12-11T00:41:23+01:00

Jeff Hawkins: Brain science is about to fundamentally change computing

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More Quantum Mechanics for Dummies - Electrons Are Weird

2008-12-09T08:20:40+01:00

Clips from a BBC documentary explaining the arguments from the 1920's until now as to whether electrons are particles, waves or both. (Embedded from YouTube)

It outlines Einstein's distaste at Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and is a good starting point in realising that the universe is far, far stranger than can be imagined.

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Marcus Brigstock on Religion

2008-12-06T08:48:46+01:00

Humour Warning!
If you don't have a sense of humour DON'T watch this video.

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Carl Sagan 1000 Years of Darkness

2008-12-05T05:01:47+01:00

As we stand on a new edge of knowledge, with the promise of strange new data from ever faster colliders, It seems a great shame that Carl Sagan is no longer with us to enjoy the discoveries and present them to us lesser mortals in a way we could understand.

I can't help wondering if the Great Library of Alexandria might have held some early thoughts on what we now call the Quantum World.

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