Welcome back and a happy new year from the CPS committee! We hope you had a pleasant break.
The first speaker of the term was Dr. Hasok Chang from the department of Science and Technology Studies here at UCL. His research looks at the history and philosophy of the physical sciences, and general philosophy of science.
The talk was entitled “When Water Does Not Boil at the Boiling Point”. Any thoughts or comments? Post 'em here!
Yes, it’s getting to that time of year again – the CPS Christmas Quiz! Hosted by Quizmaster Dr. Andrea Sella, it will he held in the Nyholm Room from 6pm on Tuesday 12th December.
To enter a team, please email me on s.potts@ucl.ac.uk with “Quiz Team” in the address bar with the following information:
1. Team Name (keep it clean) 2. The names of the team members (maximum of 6) 3. The team status (undergraduate, postgraduate, staff)
Entry to the quiz is FREE. There will be a raffle on the night (£1 per ticket) and refreshments available (alcoholic and non-alcoholic). You are welcome to bring your own refreshments.
The winners will be the proud owners of the prestigious CPS Quiz Cup for the following year.
Yesterday's speaker was Dr. John Emsley, who gave the talk “The Elements of Murder" to a packed out Ramsay Lecture Theatre. He has written a book of the same name. Dr. Emsley is a science writer by trade, formerly in Residence in the Chemistry Department at the University of Cambridge. He wrote a “Molecule of the Month” column for the Independent for many years, received a Glaxo award for science writing and the Chemical Industries Association’s President’s Award for science communication. His books include “Molecules in an Exhibition”, “The Shocking History of Phosphorus” and “Nature’s Building Blocks”.
Please post your thoughts and comments about the talk here.
This monday evening is the last event the Tate interdisciplinary Materials Library series:
"We will be investigating the art in the Idea Object gallery of the Tate Modern from a material perspective using the same format as before, this time featuring: helium balloon quilibrium tasks, the essence of fluorescence, Beuysian materials, and due to popular demand, the muted symphony of the lead bugle; along with the usual selection of strange materials, and of course a tray of drinks at the end.
Please do come if you fancy some new ideas or objects in your life on monday 27th November 6.30pm."
The CPS has got a fantastic deal on tickets for the Monty Python Musical Spamalot. Tickets for the grand circle are priced £30 (a 25% discount on normal prices for mere mortals). However, you have to be fast! We only have 25 tickets available, so you must reserve yours by giving a cash or cheque made payable to the Chemical and Physical Society to Davy Adriaens or Clare Bishop in Room 105 on the first floor by 12 noon on Monday the 20th of November at the latest. Note this is a dead(as a parrot)line
We've had an action packed October what with Halloween parties, Peter Barham speaking about the psychology of flavour and Tony Hooper going on about sex, flies and videotape.
We've been pretty bad with keeping the blog updated, but we've been too busy catering for career events and writing theses. Apologies.
Oh, and given the ridiculous poularity of myspace, we've also opened an account there at http://www.myspace.com/chemphyssoc. Feel free to friend us (if you're not too embarassed), in return we'll send out bulletins of upcoming events. Our main blog will still remain here at livjournal for now, if anything because it's based on much better software.
Tonight we are being spoken to by Nick Ross, of BBC fame. I, the blogger, have not the faintest idea what he will be talking about, so you had better go along to find out.
To follow up an Andrea Sella's environmental stuff, jwz has posted up some depressing news you should know about:
Between 2003 and 2005, Greenland's low coastal areas shed 155 gigatons (41 cubic miles) of ice per year, while snow accumulation in the interior of the ice sheet was only 54 gigatons per year. The amount of ice lost in two years is roughly the same as the amount of water that flows through the Colorado River in 12 years.
The GRACE satellites sense changes in mass beneath them by responding to changes in gravitational force. As the twin satellites orbit the Earth in tandem, the distance between them changes as a result of changes in the concentration of mass on the Earth below.
(Now that part's kinda awesome: they used the satellites responsible for this gravity model, the data of which is normally intended for, basically, making sure your ICBMs land where you meant them to.)
Overall, Greenland lost 20 percent more mass than it received in snowfall each year. These results are consistent with overall trends in ice loss that other types of observations of Greenland have documented, including radar-based estimates of accelerating glacier flow off the ice sheet.
According to one of the study's authors, Jay Zwally of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, "This is a very large change in a very short time. In the 1990s, the ice sheet was growing inland and shrinking significantly at the edges, which is what climate models predicted as a result of global warming. Now the processes of mass loss are clearly beginning to dominate the inland growth, and we are only in the early stages of the climate warming predicted for this century."
Just to remind you that Dr. Andrea Sella will be giving his infamous demonstration lecture, "Odeurs et Lumières 2006", today at 5:45 pm in the Chemistry Auditorium.
Free pre-talk tea and doughnuts will be available in the Nyholm room from 5:15 pm and (again free) wine and nibbles will be served afterwards.
PS For those of you who don't know, we have a new events schedule for the 2007-07 year.
With the big kick off only a week away, the Chemical and Physical Society invite you to join in the fun by entering out fantastic competition: CPS World Cup Predictor 2006!.
To enter, all you have to do is predict the scores of the 48 group matches in this year's World Cup. A cash prize of at least £100 will be awarded to the highest ranked player after all 48 games. In addition there will be further prizes for 2nd and 3rd places, highest points total for each round of group games, and for the highest placed 'team' of players.
- Staff v Students cricket match. (Find out what happened last year here!) - Table Tennis (available all day) - Tennis (available all day) - 5-a-side football, where the legendary Dynamo Faradays will take on the CCCPS, captained by the great Richard Catlov himself - Rounders - Tug of War - BBQ (including strawberries and cream for dessert!) - A fully licenced bar - Live Music, thanks to the Third Light, our new favourite band
The next CPS talk will be presented by Dr. Mark Saunders from the Department of Space & Climate Physics at UCL. His group’s main areas of interest include the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling (CPOM), a research centre that studies processes in the Earth’s polar latitudes that may affect the polar atmosphere, ocean circulation, and global sea level; seasonal and extreme weather forecasts, paying particular attention to benefits to business, industry and society, and rain/altimeter software engineering.
The talk, entitled “Hurricanes and Global Warming”, will start at 5:30pm, Tuesday 7th March, in the Ramsay Lecture Theatre. As usual, it will be preceded by tea and doughnuts from 5:15pm and followed by wine and nibbles.
Today is Shrove Tuesday, aka Pancake Day, so we made pancakes! As usual we have no photographic proof for this, but it was all thanks to Simon King and Julian Perfect.
Does anyone have any opinions on the talk? The title wasn't exactly a PR success...
For those of you that care, we have compiled and uploaded the results of the last pub quiz. The one where Dave Rowley was quiz master. In fact, does anyone have any pictures of him that night?
The results of the caption competition are also up here.
Professor Knight will be talking about his work in quantum optics and quantum information.
It's hard for us to stress just how big a name Professor Knight is in his field, but he is allegedly the most cited theorist in the world in his field of research.
As usual: tea and doughnuts before, drinks and nibbles after.
Carl Djerassi, the man who first synthesized the progesterone central to workings of the first contraceptive pills will be speaking at the British Library on February the 28th. He won't actually be talking about his life as an organic chemist, by the way, he will be talking about the Nobel Prize in a talk entitled 'Noble Science and Noble Lust'. This is part of a series of talks held at the BL this winter/spring which run parallel to an exhibition on the Nobel Prize unoriginally entitled 'Beautiful Minds'. It's free so it's worth a visit!
Speaking of Nobel Prizes, our speaker next week is Sir James Black, who happens to have been awarded one himself. More info is our website, and will shortly be plastered all over the department.
You might also be interested in the other (better) exhibition currently on at the British Library, 'The John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library'. This is truly a great exhibition, especially considering it's free. Documents on exhibition include a copy of Newton's Principia, a rather large collection of original musical scores written by Mozart (he was born exactly 250 years ago!), Beatles memorabilia, and an impressive range of religious texts, such as the Lindsfarne Bible as well as some beautiful Islamic and Chinese texts. Oh, and there are also original letters written by the likes of William Shakespeare and Thomas More. You would be a fool to miss this.
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