LED electroscope

In preparation for teaching electrostatics next week, I was searching the web for some demonstrations that were a little more exciting than combs attracting bits of paper. The LED electroscope is one of the ones I found, and I think it's really cool.

Its beauty comes from its sheer simplicity of construction. First, you take a normal 9V PP7 battery connector, slice off the top moulding and remove the wires (if you're careful, you can keep the plastic that you slice off and re-insert it later for a neater finish). You then solder an LED and a a FET (field effect transisitor) in series across the two terminals (making sure you have the correct polarity). The gate pin of the transisitor remains unconnected and acts as the antenna.

When you connect the battery, the LED glows with around 80% brightness (there's plenty of resistance across the transistor, that's also why you don't need a protective resistor for the LED). If you charge a plastic ruler and bring it within around 15-20 cm of the transistor, the LED goes out.

I built one with a highly directional green LED, but I'm going to try a super-bright, wide-angle blue LED to see if I can get a more striking demonstration, possibly pannel mounted, if I get time.

Reading policy U-turn

I've cracked.

I just CAN'T stick to one book at a time - there are just SO many things I want to read.

Currently reading:

• Oakeshott The Voice of Liberal Learning
• Rousseau Emile
• Sire Habits of the Mind
• Arnold Culture and Anarchy
• Woodhouse Very Good, Jeeves!

As you can see, there's a flurry of philosophy of education reading just at the moment, which I'm finding really interesting, although quite challenging to get to grips with. They are really forcing me to try and decide what I think about education.


There's also a new Allingham back in print from Vintage (what a marvellous service they are doing for society) which I want to buy and read, but I think I'll leave for my Christmas list since I really don't have time to read it at present! [I saw it in Borders, Oxford Street]


Last week I applied for my Waterstones Advantage Card. When ticking the boxes for "How many books do you buy each year?" M expressed surprise that I ticked the "20+" box. But then I don't drink or smoke - there are worse ways of spending your money!




PS viva was 3 1/4 hours! Passed with minor corrections.

Reading policy

For many years (perhaps a little over 10) I have maintained a reading policy that has been described as "weird", "stupid" or sometimes more charitably as "strange".

It has been this: at any one time I have been reading number of books, usually along the following lines:

• a work of fiction (alternating between serious literature and lighter fare, such as a crime novel)
• a chemistry text or monograph
• a science book (not chemistry)
• a non-science non-fiction book (incl. biography)
• a Christian book
• anything else that I need to read for one reason or another (e.g. for teaching, research &c)
  

The advantages of this are several-fold:

• if you are deeply engrossed in a number of books, it encourages you to spend more time reading
• when you sit down to read, you have a choice of material to suit your mood or level of altertness (it's no good trying to read about quantum theory when you are tired - you want a nice Agatha Christie)
• you have a choice of volumes to take out with you for journeys &c (a heavy Dickens or biography is not ideal for putting in a bag you've got to carry round all day)
• plus it's just more interesting!

However the major disadvantage is that when there's a lot of pressure on your time it can be hard to keep the momentum going. When I was an undergraduate, I used to read for 3-4 hours a day or more. As a post-graduate it used to go in cycles, depending on how the labwork was going. Now that I'm starting teaching full-time, I think that I will very much less spare time to indulge this particular passion and so I think that I'm moving to reading one volume at a time. I hope that this will allow me to concentrate on it a bit more and feel like I'm making more progress. I may weaken on this resolve and keep a fiction and non-fiction going. But I'll try and just read one thing at a time.

If you read this blog regularly (who am I kidding??) then you should see the "Currently reading" panel dwindle away - but I'll leave the one's I've already started on there for now. From the previous post you can see that I've just finished the Hudson Taylor biog. I think that I will concentrate on the sunspots one next.

Hudson Taylor: A Man in Christ

I've just finished reading Roger Steer's Hudson Taylor: A Man in Christ (Paternoster /OMF: 2001; 1850784086). It is an amazing story about an amazing man - one who thought of himself as the little servant of a great Master, yet one who started a missionary society that pioneered the evangelisation of inland China and saw the baptism of over 18,000 Chinese Christians in about 50 years.

I was somewhat hesitant about reading another Christian biography, after finding Walker's work on Calvin very hard-going. But this book is engaging from the first page and the short chapters made it ideal for reading on the London Underground (where I seem to be spending a fair bit of time lately).

I cannot do justice to this book here, however hard I try. All I will say is this: READ IT!

End of an era ...

I now have in my possession a yellow slip of paper that proves that I handed my thesis in at the Examination Schools at 12:13 on 1st June, 2007. That event draws a line under my graduate research in Oxford and I've now turned over and begun to fill a blank page with a new chapter in my life.

On Saturday I relocated to London and I am spending this week observing lessons in the school that have appointed me to teach chemistry from September. It seems a little bit strange returning to a life governed by 'the bell' - but in many ways it feels like coming home and I'm very much looking forward to starting properly in September. I think that it would be unprofessional to share personal views on my work in an open forum such as this (though please be re-assured that I'm getting delusions of grandeur thinking that anyone actually reads these ramblings). Henceforth, therefore, I hope to cut out the (really rather dull) autobiographical stuff on this blog, and return it to being what it says on the tin ... a blog about Chemistry, Ferns and other musings ...

A publisher's mistake, but still a cracking novel ...

I have just finished reading The Mysterious Commission by Michael Innes. The chief characters are a portrait artist (Charles Honeybath, RA) , Inspector Keybird, and a bunch of criminals. However, having read this book from cover to cover, it is most manifestly NOT an "Inspector Appleby Mystery" - as the publisher blazes across the cover.

Apparently, this error by House of Stratus has been noted before (and drawn to their attention) as described by this excellent website, which fills in a little more detail about Michael Innes and his work.

I'm inclined not to be too hard on HoS, though, because they are at least keeping these works in print and available for the public (Penguin seem to have decided that classic crime novels aren't worth producing anymore - those beautiful green and cream covers are fast disappearing from the shops).

Clouds

I have just finished reading a rather interesting little book called The Cloud Spotter's Guide, by Gavin Pretor-Pinney (Sceptre, 2007).

I must confess to having been avoiding bookshops for a while, mainly due to the distinct lack of book-buying funds which is part and parcel of being a 4th year graduate student in the UK. I am, therefore, probably one of the last people to hear about this book (the 2006 HB edition was selected as the Sunday Times Bestseller). Whilst I won't go so far as to endorse the Sunday Times review comment, (which was 'Go cloudspotting: it's the new religion') I will go so far as to say that I think it is an excellent book, being by far the best treatment of cloud classification and identification that I have ever come across.

Most meterological books tend to jump from the Janet-and-John-level [This is a cloud. A cloud is made of water. When the water falls from the cloud it is called rain] to the mind-blowingly complex this is a Cirrocumulus lancunosus undulatus cloud in a matter of a couple of paragraphs. In The Cloud Spotter's Guide, however, Mr Pretor-Pinney takes us gently through all the cloud types, explains their Latin names, and just when you think it might be getting a bit heavy diverts you onto a human-interest story.

I really recommend this book to anyone who has ever been interested in clouds, even for a split-second. I also own (and have read) Uman's classic text on lightning (kindly kept in print by the wonderful Dover Publications) but that's a much harder read, though just as worthwhile.

If you are in any doubt ... have a look at the Cloud Appreciation Society website, especially the photograph gallery.

The only question now is what to read next. Perhaps this is the time to bite the bullet and actually read Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything.

FINISHED!!

Finally - I'm out!

I finished yesterday evening at about 6pm. My fume cupboard is beautifully clean, my bench space cleared and you can once again see that I really did have a desk, rather than just a mass of paper piled up from the floor.

I'm feeling really quite relieved. All I have to do now is write the thesis. Ahem. Writing proper starts tomorrow!

And now, on my first day of not-having-to-get-up-and-go-to-the-lab, there's 4-6" of snow, which would definitely have kept me at home. Hey ho. A nice walk is in order later, I think.

The end is in sight

It has felt like a very long month. When I started back (see my last post) I was facing a month of labwork in order to finish. Three and a bit weeks later, I'm getting close (probably another week to go). At times it has felt as if I've been getting close to the end, only to find it waves at me before running off into the distance again, but I really and genuinely hope to be out of the lab by the middle of next week.

And then ... the thesis beckons!

Back in Oxford

For the first time in nearly three and a half years, I've managed to spend 3 weeks away from Oxford (well, almost - I came back for a day because we were moved out of our laboratory at very short notice). I spent most of that time at home, but also went twice to Norfolk. It's been a restful time, and I have made some progress on my thesis (I have at least started all the chapters now). But today - amidst a flurry of packing up, driving down, unloading and supermarket shopping - I'm back in Oxford.

I'm sitting in the lab now, filling in some time before going to church and pondering on what the next couple of months have in store.

• First and foremost, they must see an end to the lab work. I have a little bit left to do, but as is always the case with research, one can never quite be sure how it is going to work out.
• Secondly, I need to get on with writing my thesis - I don't want it dragging on for ever.
• Thirdly, I need to get on with the review article I'm meant to be writing.
  
• Fourthly, I need to find some employment in Oxford to carry me through until the summer.
• Fifthly, I need to work out what I'm going to do next year (though I have made a little progress on this)

It's going to be busy!