This is Caspar’s video of Sarah Simblet’s week with us as Artist in Residence 2011.
The following is a video diary celebrating the visit of Edwina Bridgeman to Summer Fields as ‘Artist in Residence’ for one week this term.
I realise that this is a tad ‘off-topic’ but I was talking to a couple of the boys about drummers and expressed the opinion that they didn’t get any better than Mike Portnoy from Dream Theatre. This was understandably met with a glazed expression. Not many 12 yr olds are familiar with progressive metal and I am sure none of us would wish it any different. Anyway, I found this very poor quality video of Mike in the studio recording a track for one of Dream Theatre’s albums. The song is called ‘As I Am’ and is a jolly dirge. You can only just hear the rest of the band faintly in the background, which is a shame because the guitar solo is amazing – I may try to find a better version and update this page. However, the point is that Mike is extremely good and if you have the patience to wait until about 6.19 minutes into the song you will see just how good. If you are not into drumming, progressive rock or complicated time signatures then you had better not watch the video.
I also found the following clip where Thomas Lang kindly explains a few tricks with his sticks. I am thinking of setting this as the end-of-term exam so I suppose that it is compulsory viewing. Sorry. He is quite good though…
Sir could you post something on that nuclear bomb that was supposubly launched by the russians but it spectacularly ran out off fuel and dissapeared into was looked like its own black hole and before looked like a comet
I did not pick up on that story until I heard it discussed on The Skeptic’s Guide To The Universe podcast, which if you like science is a must listen for your iPod. This episode from 9th December will take you to the relevant page where you can hear what they have to say about it. It was a, presumably, unarmed missile test that went wrong. For it to have spiralled as it did it must have gone wrong in a very specific way, but it may have looked more chaotic and less symmetrical if you had been up close. Presumably they used a self-destruct instruction to destroy the missile before it could land anywhere populated.
What are you talking about Ludvig?
He was referring to this news item http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1234430/Mystery-spiral-blue-light-display-hovers-Norway.html
I am coooooooooooooooool!
Sir could you post something on that think called Diamond light in Oxford? I think it is something to do with generating brilliant beams of light, from infra-red to X-rays, which are used in a wide range of applications, from structural biology through fundamental physics and chemistry to cultural heritage. But how does it actually work? Just on a cultural note they also have a Art Exhibition on at The NorthWall Arts Centre, South Parade.
Thanks Max. I will have a look at it. There was an interesting article in the Guardian at the weekend about lasers so I may be able to combine the two. As you can see, now that term has started blog activity has ceased! I am hoping to have the site working at school soon so that it will pick up again. Thanks for stopping by…
This Gapper video is so funny! Wish I was there to witness the action first-hand!
very interresting about the mars bar and fusion:i really like this blog!!!!
i wish i had seen the dinky cars!!!!!
sorry if i said mars bar i meant mars sorry i was very hungry!!!!
There are many areas where science and art meet (collide?), and it is great to see that the Summer Fields blog is one of them. Thanks for placing the art film here.
Hello
Hello Hugh – just had a very entertaining browse around your website. Have a great Christmas.
sir why do candles go out if you blow on them
i have various theories and they are probably all complete trash!!!
You are actually starving them of oxygen, which seems unlikely, but the air is flowing too quickly over the flame for it to get enough oxygen to stay alight. What were your hypotheses?
that was a great gappers video 2009
cant wait for the 2010 one
What a great website Hugh. I’d be very grateful if you could remind me of the electrical circuit for lights that have switches at either end. e.g. on a staircase. Thanks!
Sir
In our recent science paper there was one question which asked about an increase of blood flow to the skin during exercise. Why is this?
p.s. lost 4/5 matches on rugby tour and Jonny got hairline fracture in arm
Great to hear from you all the way away in South Africa! Hope you have had a good time despite some tough results – it is always pretty hard to compete out there but I am sure it has been a good experience.
I think your question refers to the Eton 2010 Q2 about how heart rate changes with exercise. Blood flow to the skin can change for a number of reasons. (It can be just a signalling process, as with blushing, which is an increase in blood flow to the cheeks.) In this case, blood flow probably increases to the skin to increase heat loss. Chemical processes within the muscles generate heat and this must be removed so the enzymes and other proteins needed for cell function are not damaged. It only takes a relatively small rise in temperature for enzymes to stop working efficiently.
In cold conditions, blood vessels in the skin constrict to reduce blood flow to prevent heat loss. This is why you look slightly ‘blue’ when you are extremely cold.
Thak you very much Sir
I was indeed referring to that question
Sir, have you got anything on the blog about exponential growth and if not please could you put something on, as , when I was doing my science revision I saw the old exponential growth sheet in our green files and was wonderng if it was true that if you were able to fold a piece of paper 100 times it would potentially be able to span the universe. It sounds barmy!
I have posted the same information again which is not very helpful but I am too tired to do anything else! The links may help but it is hard to get one’s head around the enormity of exponential numbers. It may be one to ask APWB. The basic answer to your question is, “Yes, it is true”. You may like my post on World Homeopathy Awareness Week if you are feeling excited about big numbers!
Hi sir
exams going well so far
over 70% done
science tomorrow
Great news Ferg – I am channeling positive energy as I type!
Hi sir!!!!!!’ can u please post something on magic as your hobby
Done! Thank you Kirill for subscribing. Science and magic go so well together. How do we know if something is true? Should we trust our eyes, or personal experience, or should we test the evidence? I know which I think is likely to be the most reliable.
Sir, what was the answer to that question about what happens to the thermal energy in an endothermic reaction I put to you a few days ago?
Thanks for reminding me. I will try to post something about it, but in brief….
Breaking the bonds between atoms in a molecule absorbs energy. When bonds form, energy is released. Different bonds release or absorb different amounts of energy in a predictable way. If it takes more energy to break the bonds during a reaction than is liberated when the new bonds form, the reaction is endothermic. The cooling effect is caused as thermal energy is converted into chemical energy (also called bond energy).
Does that help? Let me know what you think.
Sir,
I have been taking hypnosis to a new level. Having read some quite serious books im thinking of attempting to insert a subliminal code into a persons brain and attempting what the mythbusters failed to prove. I will try to record or capture the outcome of this inception like myth. I hope to tell you the results soon.
I am no expert but I think that it is not possible to hypnotise anyone to do anything that they would never normally do. Stage hypnotists do exercises with the audience to select the most suggestible people to appear on stage. Then they weed out anyone who doesn’t play along on stage. Psychologists who hypnotise for ‘medical’ reasons have the advantage that their patients usually want the outcome that they are trying to achieve. It will be hard to choose a subliminal message that will stand out as extraordinary behaviour and will not be something your victim just does to fulfil your expectations. I will be interested to hear how it goes. Keep us posted – maybe you could write a post with some video or photographic evidence to support it? Please give my best to any of your colleagues who might appreciate it!
That is why we are hypnotising the subject in order to prevent him biting his nails, he wants to stop and believes i can do it.
If he believes that you can do it then you probably will. Don’t give the impression that you have any doubt about it. Your certainty and his confidence will be essential. Can’t wait to hear how it goes!
Sir, may you please buy the Hazard stickers.
Yes of course. We are about to put in an order for some other things so remind me tomorrow.
Ok sir, by the way, may you please tell me how to change my profile view.
If you set up a free account with wordpress.com you can upload your own avatar like the picture I use. The one you have at the moment is created from your email address so it will always look the same if you use the same address. You can change your email address (just make one up like bob@bob.com) but then I will have to ‘approve’ each comment that uses a new email address. At the moment, once you have had one comment approved you are free to add others without waiting for approval.
In the tab below it just gives you a Log in tab if you already have an account, but it doesn’t have a register box.
Click on http://wordpress.com/ and choose to “Sign Up Now”. I think it is in orange. If you then choose to start a rival blog and are more successful than me I will be very upset!
Hi sir hows things?
Eton is great
Have things changed much at sf since June?
Great to hear from you Freguz! I am very glad to hear that all is going well for you. It was kind of you to answer a couple of questions – my lazy pupils never bother! The site still doesn’t work on the school network so I can’t blame them although you’d think a few of the dayboys might take an interest. Heigh-ho.
Nothing much has changed here. We are all furiously busy with “We Will Rock You” as the school play. It will be a lighting and sound spectacular so my boffins and I are very excited about it all. Give my best to all the guys.
ps Your honours board has finally made it up onto the wall – it looks very impressive!
Who’s dircecting We will rock you sir
Mrs Stoop – it’s a huge exercise but Tommy C is extremely good so it might be a jolly show!
Sir on BBC basic how does one make the code so that it intimates a certain response?
So if the program asked you what your name was how could you make different responses for different people. I know it is something like “IF YES” but I cannot remember quite what.
I always struggle to remember the exact syntax but in BBC Basic I used to use the Case Select function. It is more efficient than a long list of IFs. This page is quite good…
http://www.bbcbasic.co.uk/bbcwin/tutorial/chapter10.html
If you need any further help just ask!
Thank you very much sir
on my basic program the program always stops because it says ” no such variable at line…” and I presume it is then talking about the fact that line… says CASE B$ OF, and I do not see what is wrong with this. Is it the fact that I have 2 CASEs and it doesnt like it?
If you copy the entire program into an email I will have a look at it for you if you like.
Hi there HCTR –
Have you seen the latest very cool innovation in online education – TED-Ed? It should be perfect for the SF Science Blog (and more besides)…
From their press release..
“Each video featured on the site is mapped, via tagging, to traditional subjects taught in schools and comes accompanied with supplementary materials that aid a teacher or student in using or understanding the video lesson. Supplementary materials include multiple-choice questions, open-answer questions, and links to more information on the topic.
But the most innovative feature of the site is that educators can customize these elements using a new functionality called “flipping.” When a video is flipped, the supplementary materials can be edited and the resulting lesson is rendered on a new and private web page. The creator of the lesson can then distribute it and track an individual student’s progress as they complete the assignment.”
WIRED magazine says: “Yes, that means that anyone can create a lesson around a video, and then track that lesson for their students and/or publish the lesson so others could benefit from it. And — here’s the big kicker — you can create a lesson around any video on YouTube. TED-Ed could easily have locked you into their site’s content, but they’ve chosen instead to open their tools up to the whole wide world of YouTube videos”
…sounds perfect for your approach, Mr R!
Here’s the link…http://ed.ted.com/…and there’s a great example on the front page of a science lesson – “Just how small is an atom?”
Good luck – I look forward to seeing if it works for you!
Dexter’s Dad
Hi Dexter’s Dad,
Thank you so much for this. I didn’t realise that TED had started a specifically school oriented site – what a great idea. I have been a bit off TED lately because I have seen a few rather, shall we call them fanciful, vague speeches that seemed to lack the scientific rigour of my favourites; some of which I have featured on this blog. I think that most of their output is fantastic but I do think they have a responsibility to keep their presentations evidence-based, particularly if they are going to aim them at children who do not always have the critical thinking faculties to distinguish the esoteric from the scientific. The other problem is that we don’t have YouTube access at school so each video I use would have to be downloaded, converted and reuploaded to my WordPress site. This is a bit of a nuisance but not impossible.
All of that said, it does look like a fantastic resource, and as you said very much in my style. I will look through their catalogue with interest. I am sorry that I have been so slow to respond to your comment. I spent the weekend in Denmark in a place called Middelfart – how we laughed! It is a beautiful country with excellent people if you have never visited.
Regards,
Hugh
I remember doing those skeleton things last year! Mine was Terrible! I’m glad there isn’t an art exam…
Sir, for the exam, will we need to revise about energy or ‘acids and alkalis’ ?
It would be best to cover everything we have done this year. I will assume that you remember some things from previous years but the main questions will be about this year’s work.
Also, will the questions be the sort of type like the Eton Data Analysis?
No, it will be a pretty standard type of exam broken up into different questions on different topics.
The info you might have is very useful. I’ll enroll in your weblog to get dailly adjustments. [Which was followed by a restaurant advert!]
Thanks truly considerably. It genuinely assisted! No less than I lastly understood that which was going on!
What a fantastic site! Amazing. Thank you! Kim
worth it to read i’ll book-marked subsequent time within the meantime carry on the nice execute.
I started reading it I actually could undoubtedly not input it along till I finished this.
That’s easy for you to say!
Wonderful publish guy, sustain up the excellent objective.
Sustaining up the excellent objective has been my life’s work…
Sorry for the not entirely relevant question, but of the science booklets Upper Remove have received over the past year, which ones will be needed in the Fifth Year?
What do you mean by ‘needed’? They are all relevant to things that might be asked in exams but the only one we have not yet finished is the chemistry one so that is where we will start again in September. Then there will be one on mammalian reproduction, a physics one on balanced and unbalanced forces and one on industrial chemistry.
We’ve developed a be aware for you personally to myself to make a thing further outstanding on Tuesdays, in anticipation of the go to
Generously mail me personally quite a few secrets and techniques suggestions
I certainly will
I prefer this kind of site significantly, preserved so as to my social bookmarks.
Outstanding manual! Thanks for this, was an appealing go through, impressive keep it up
Hi there. Fantastic, thrilling post, and a minor as is also. We discovered new factors these days!
I’m delighted to find out this website. A pair of massive thumbs upwards, person!