I guess it is clear from these postings that I haven’t seen a clear sky in a long while 🙁 What is even more annoying is that I’ve just hooked the Sky 6 up to the C11 so I can now “Go To” using a planetarium program – utter bliss. As I am dying to try out this new software you can be sure that it will remain cloudy over Hampshire for weeks 🙁
Two views of Enneper’s minimal surface created in Mathematica:
And as I’m on a roll – here’s another surface – this time it’s Boy’s surface:
I have always been interested in mathematical shapes and surface which is the main reason for the Mobius Loop appearing below (I don’t really think it has anything to do with the structure of spacetime). However there have been a couple of surfaces I haven’t managed to plot out – until tonight 🙂 Now that I have “retired” I am able to sit down and concentrate for 10-minutes on the stuff that actually interests me. So here I present the only mathematical surface named after a place – the Roman surface:
I came across this print of M42 while looking through some old notes. Print you note – not data – the data has long gone. So why a print? Because when this first came out of the Hyperstar I and SXV-H9C camera I was completely gobsmacked! A thirty second sub (I knew nothing about multiple subs and stacking when I started) with the faithful old C11 in Alt-Az configuration. I thought this was the bees-knees. In fact I was so pleased with it I printed it out and gave it as Christmas Cards to the neighbours in 2004.
O.K. so I’ve learned a little since then – but I can still remember the feeling of elation with those very first images I got at the New Forest Observatory 🙂
So why not buy a copy of Star Vistas for the budding astronomer in your family? Also – with Forewords by Sir Arthur C Clarke, Sir Patrick Moore, and Dr. Brian May – this first edition is likely to become something of a collectors’ item in the years to come – so why not invest now? 🙂
Got today’s EPOD with a panoramic (4-frame) view of Hurst Spit, the Isle of Wight, Hurst castle and Hurst lighthouse – plus Keyhaven salt marshes and the Solent. There’s lots to see in this image 🙂 Thank you Jim for continuing to show interest in my work.
Is our Universe a 4-dimensional Mobius Loop giving the appearance of an infinitely large structure?
Mathematica produced 3-dimensional surface with x= (1+0.5 v * Cos(0.5u))*Cos(u) y=(1+0.5 v * Cos(0.5 u))*Sin(u) z=0.5 v * (Sin 0.5u)
For some reason an incident that happened when I was 19 years old entered my mind twice today (early signs maybe?). Perhaps this account will be of some use to somebody out there, you never know, it might even save a life 🙂
I left school at 19 (one year late as I spent 2 years in New Zealand which effectively cost me a year’s education) and joined the U.K.A.E.A. Harwell – yes the radiation place – as an Assistant Scientific Officer. Now the first six months were spent taking the world-famous Harwell training course which I must admit held me in good stead for the whole of my working life, but that is by the by. So for six months I worked at Harwell before going to the Culham Laboratory for Fusion Research to work on CO2 lasers. In my first few weeks I noticed something VERY VERY scary, there were LOTS of people working there with duff legs! Lots of the workers were hobbling about with some leg (or foot) problem. Well I wasn’t stupid – I had 3 A-levels – this could only be one thing – RADIATION POISONING!! So, panic stricken at the sudden realisation at what was going on (I’ve always been a bit of a hypochondriac as well as a Conspiracy Theorist) I ran to the Training Officer during the lunch break – he could see I was pretty upset about something, and the conversation went something like this.
Training Officer – “O.K. Greg, so what is the problem?”
Newbie A.S.O. – When I look around this place, I see there’s tons of people walking around with duff legs and the like. What’s going on here? Has there been a radiation leak? Am I in any danger here?
Training Officer – tears of laughter rolling down his face (I didn’t think it was particularly funny at the time) – “No Greg, there has not been any radiation leak, and you are not in any danger from radiation. What you have noticed is that as part of the Scientific Civil Service we are actually doing what other large organisations like ours are meant to do, and don’t – we are taking on our full compliment of disabled people.”
Newbie A.S.O. – “Ahh”. Goes back to lunch.
So the moral of the story is this, sometimes, even when the answer seems completely obvious to you – it may not be what you think it is 🙂
