Golfing, Biking and Felling

On this Tuesday we decided to slip out to visit a bigger city, so we could see more cheap wonders of the american stores. After a lengthy hour long drive we arrived in Traverse city. Best-Buy was an experience, being asked at least 8 times whether I could be helped by assistants, bit of a contrast to any store in the UK. Despite being severely tempted by the prospect of a cheap tablet to replace my kindle, I resisted. Barely... Instead I satisfied myself with a Bagel... 

Mmm... big apple

...although a far cry from a gadget, the quality was excellent. Bagels are a tasty treat that I thoroughly approve of from American cuisine. After that point it was time to get serious. We were going to go play some golf. We were to play two rounds of 18 holes, the courses having low pars of 36 and 41, there being some rather extreme water hazards present and some extreme hill climbs and slopes. Of course... I am speaking of pirate adventure golf. The course was impressive, with a fantastic set and background.

And the Golf Pro lines up the shot...

Despite doing well initially, sinking the first few par twos with ease, things rapidly went worse for me, Jen taking a lead. But due to a series of bad luck I managed to pull back the first game. In the second, despite getting two hole in ones, I didn't do so well. Still... a rather fun way to spend an evening. Especially before the big trip the next day...

Visit to Mackinac Island

An early start to the day, marking our hour long journey to the ferry to 'Historic Mackinac Island', a local tourist attraction Jen promised was a treat. As we boarded the ferry with our bikes there were completely blue skies. Before long, it was full steam ahead with some amazing views of the 2600m long Mackinaw bridge crossing the two great lakes 

Mackinaw Bridge

After we departed the ferry we started to cycle round the island. 10 miles in circumference the island was very picturesque, with flat roads. No cars are permitted on the island, making the ride pleasant and safe. There were pretty beaches, clear waters, and old buildings, dating from the 19th century. It was great to be able to cycle in such clean and fresh air. A real change from the cough inducing atmosphere in Manchester... (and my bike worked for a change too!)

Amazing clear waters seen in the great lakes

We then stopped off at the main town and wandered up to the fort on the island. Due to the islands position between two of the great lakes it had some strategic value. It featured mainly in the 1812 war, a war almost no one remembers in Britain. This is largely due to the fact it happened alongside the Napoleonic wars, and ended in 1815 with the same territory both sides started with. It was interesting to see the re-enactments there, including the cannon firing! It was also good because the British both took and held the fort from the Americans.

OPEN FIRE!

We watched some local girl scouts change the flags, and then cycled further up into the hills. The view from the highest point was very nice, and after taking someones photo we got into the chat about the UK with some Americans. We've had this several times by this point... and people vary from being curious about where you're from to asking details about the olympics!

The town as viewed from the fort

Finally we had some time to spare before getting the ferry. And we spent it buying fudge. Of course we had to try all of the flavours first too.... we only got three after all... My favourite was the blueberry fudge. The sweetness of the fudge went very well with the bitterness of the berries. We left the island and went home.

Chilling and Felling Trees

After such active days it was decided that we would have a day off. So what did I do? I cut down some trees!

TIMBBEEEEERRR!!!!

Hopefully I'll get some fun things made from the trunks, and I'll upload the pictures. Whether they are epic win or epic fail! 

I got wood

Although I've been having increasing jet lag problems, hopefully I'll keep up to date on any of my exploits! 

Still in America

Lovely forest outside the shack!

As the sun rose next day, and we ate our coffee and dohnuts we learned that it was to be a scorcher of a day... a perfect day to run an jump in one of the local lakes. So... we jumped on the quad.

Jen ridin' on the quad

I jumped behind jen passenger seat, and off we went, back into the woods, trailing along dusty tracks and through the woods (taking care to drive on the right of the road). The bike skidded and twisted through the woods, until we arrived at the tranquil private lake Elizabeth. Despite the 35 degree weather the water was refreshingly cool as we went for a dip in the fantastically clear water. Its quite impressive compared to water in the UK where the lakes at their best are.... green. Here you could even see the bottom. After a bit of a swim we headed over to the nearby golf club....

The Golf Clubhouse

The clubhouse offered a refreshing selection of beers. And you do have to be careful about the beer you choose in America. In the UK - if you want a beer that isn't say Carlsberg, carling ect (so Bud, Bud light, Coors ect here), you choose the one on the pump. But all beer is bottled here... So after consuming a couple of blander beers I found what you need to ask for is craft beers. These are brewed similar to microbreweries in th UK, and have all the variation you would expect. After the beer we wandered back from the Golf course, going out for dinner, and watching films. Unusually I've had to take the small food option in the states, so large are the portions...

Golf Course - different to the UK. Why? No rain!

Off in the Woods... Again

Another sunny day led to the question... where should me and jen explore today? And jen took me to one of her favourite places... Hartwick pines. This is a state park consisting of wood land that was not felled in the early 20th century. As such there are much older, and bigger trees in the forest here. It seemed a more natural forest

Natural Pine forest

This was essentially how America does the National Trust. There were exhibits on history, people in period costume ect. The only difference was it cost $10 for an annual pass. For a whole car of people. To our good fortune it was also a 'black iron day'...

A blacksmith under his Gazebo

This was like your typical re-enactment day in the UK, although with significantly less actual history. You could watch blacksmiths at their work, making trinkets (or knives) out of iron for you to buy. What was interesting was how much people interacted with the history though. Although this was but a small part of the culture back in the time, you had as many as ten or twenty smiths just from the local area. These aren't just people who are paid to re-enact - they live as full smiths, providing ironwork for locals. It would be interesting to see what would happen if British history interacted in the same way. Would we see more Roman mosaics in contemporary housing? More chandeliers in our homes? Or just more grand tapestries?

Walk in the woods

After that we went for a nice walk in the woods. Sun shining above. Carefully watching for more wasps! But fortunately there was no nest in sight. After a rather pleasant wander we headed back. And on the way we stopped for some beers...

Yes.... more Boddingtons Pub Ale

.. and some fluorescent superman ice cream...

SUPERMAN - now with bonus e numbers

Relaxing Monday

On Monday we paid a casual visit to Jens grandparents. Whilst there we played on some retro pinball machines, and then had a quick dip in the lake. There were fish everywhere whilst we we swam, and I could feel the minnows swimming through my leg hair... This was a general day of relaxing...

Soon to be continued...

In America

Hi all, if you're reading this you are either wondering where I have vanished, curious about what I've been doing or just plain bored at work! I will attempt to document some of my exploits in america (fully complimented with pictures!)

First Few Days...

Flying over was about as painless as could be expected. By which I mean, fairly inconvenient and being forced to wait in queues. Despite fumbling at the border security after accidentally saying I didn't have a job 'yet'... we managed to arrive into beautiful Traverse City Michigan. A sunny and very pleasantly warm Michigan. Being severly jet-lagged we retired fairly quickly... the next day would be the true start to the holiday

First Day

The next day I was treated to the true American breakfast. Unlimited coffee (to help with the jet lag) toast and sausages (because I was hungry) and half a plate of hash browns (because... weeeelll....). A very satisfying and tasty breakfast. After that we wandered down to a farmers market and I discovered some of the differences in price of food. There was corn on the cob available for $3 a dozen... large home made pies for $8 and other fantastic treats. As well as the sight of my first Hill Billy. 

Very shortly afterwards we returned to Jen's parents 'Shack in the Woods', my home for the upcoming three weeks. And its certainly a pretty place, although a bit bigger than a shack, featuring a hot tub, air conditioning and a whole series of comfy communal areas. Yes.  Definitely not a shack.

Jens House

After having a little go in the hot tub (well who wouldn't) we decided to go off and explore the local area. We walked down the stairs visible in the picture. Straight past a nest of bald faced hornets. As they buzzed and stang I'm not proud to say that I might have screamed like a little girl... and made a rapid retreat back into the house, nursing a large number of stings. Me and Jen cowered on the couch in the corner for the rest of the afternoon, whilst Jens dad bravely went forth to tackle the nest with a hose.

One of the nasties that attacked us: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald-faced_hornet

And so ended the first day...

After recovering from the wasps...

On the second day of holiday my dear Jen took me to, a Wall-mart and canoeing. And whilst we were there we admired the selections of bikes, guns, and pet fish. Which was an interesting combination to have in one store, and one you would definitely not see in the UK. What impressed me was not just the size - the building was similar in size to a hypermarket - but also that the density in which stuff was packed was comparable to a UK supermarket. A truly monumental amount of stuff in a small space. Despite it being big and evil, we were drawn in by its low low prices... 

This was not the best part of the day, however. The highlight was definitely canoeing along the glorious Au Sable River...

Not my photo, but an excellent example of the river

... imagine gently rowing down a slow winding river. Clear blue skies. 30 odd degrees. Fantastically clear clean water, and the sound of the local wildlife. (Including drunk Americans who kept on falling out of their canoe). A cooler of beer in the back, to drink whilst paddling. It was a truly blissful afternoon, which led on to a relaxing evening eating huge burritos in a local bar.

Adventures in more big stores

After a fairly exhausting day, it was decided that me and Jen should embark on a slightly more local adventure. After customary coffee and (cinnamon coated) donuts in the shack we headed off to home depot.

Omnomnomnomnom... coated do-nuts go so well with coffee

It is a real shame that we don't have stores like this in the UK. For a fraction of the price this store had a huge selection of fun toys for any men. We went in for hacksaw blades, but I couldn't resist buying some rope for scouting activities. And I could have just as easily brought back power tools, or gardening equipment for my house in Manchester. Purely because it was about half the price of B&Q for so many items...

And it would need to be a double poilaroider

Then we went to Bob Evans. And I paid $8, and I got a mamouth breakfast...

That is 2 sausage patties, fries, 2 eggs over easy, and 3 pancakes with golden syrup...

Feeling rather stuffed despite not being able to manage all three pancakes, we headed back to the shack. And whilst there we started playing with Jens quadbike. After much effort, we got it started, and we went for a quick spin round the golf course next to the house. It was... rather thrilling... should I say. Dirt tracks and more fantastic forest. And that was but our first adventure on the quad. 

To be continued to up to date tomorrow....

A little experiment

This is my experiment into a blog about physics, its something I've though about before, and hopefully it might increase my skill as a scientific writer, as well as potentially being of interest to people, I'd appreciate any comments or questions, I'll start with stuff I've done and understand well... and then hopefully they'll continue. I'll start with my summer project (for those who don't know about it). I will use equations, but I'll try and put descriptions that explain their meaning, which could be skipped if you understand the mathematics.

Pipe flow, magnetic fields and surface chemistry... or what I did in my holidays...


 Water flow has been used to generate electricity for many years, in the form of hydro-electric power.  These work on the standard principle of electricity generation, you simply move a coil of wire inside a magnetic field. This causes electrons to flow through the coil, as the electrons interact with the magnetic field, and this is called Faraday Induction. On a microscopic scale it is governed by the Lorentz force, which tells us how electrons interact with electromagnetic fields (like the magnetic field) given by the equation;

F = q (E + v × B )

In this equation we have q, the charge of the electron, E the electric field (this is related to the current for most  samples), v the velocity of the electron (this is the average speed at which an electron moves through a material), B is the magnetic field strength. In this equation the × is not an ordinary multiplication, it is called the  cross product, and it means that when we use a cross product between B and v the resultant force (F) is in a direction different to both the magnetic field and the velocity, This can be seen in the figure below.

Here we have the geometry from the cross product , and the resulting 'Hall Effect'

The interesting result of this equation, is that we flow electrons or other charges (such as chemical ions like H+),they get deflected to one side. We do this when we apply a current through any material, such as a copper bar. When we put the electrons flowing through a finite box, this means all the negative charge collects on one side, the farthest it can go. As all materials are normally electrically neutral, this means the electrons have become delocalised (disconnected) from their atoms, so these atoms start to show a positive charge on the other side of the box (they are no longer screened by electrons). This is called the Hall Effect, and is very important in computer manufacturing, physics and materials, as it tells you some fundamental properties of the sample, if you do a more complete analysis.

Well at this point you might be saying that this is all very interesting, but what relevance does it have to water? But you can actually apply the same idea in water. Typical tap water actually contains many free ions, either from impurities such as calcium carbonate (which makes water hard), or even just H+ and OH- ions that have become un-bonded. As such when we flow water through a pipe, we expect to see a similar effect. What is exciting about this effect is it generates a voltage across the pipe. If we applied this to a standard piping in houses we may be able to generate a voltage big enough to power small applications.

Water molecules(red and white) with impurities (blue and yellow)

If it could be harnessed, then it could potentially lead to simple power generation methods. I attempted to measure this signal in my summer project. The results were in agreement with the Lorentz force, although unfortunately the voltages generated were insufficient for realistic applications. This was done all the way up to very powerful magnetic fields ~12T (typical MRI machines are 3T). I tried this for a whole host of different types of water, with different impurited, and they all obeyed the law derived from the Lorentz force.

V = d v B

Where V is the voltage across the pipe, d is the diameter. This is quite different to in normal metals... Intuitively we would expect some dependence on the number of ions. In normal metals voltages, and any electrical properties are effected by the number of electrons available to conduct, but this isn't true for magnetic fields in water. As this isn't of any real use, we were stumped. Fortunately we also found 'Electromagnetic Surface Effects', which don't even require a magnetic field. These are, in simpler terms, the equivalent of the potato clock, but in flowing water.

So how does this work? Well when you put 2 materials next to each other, there will be some interaction, due to chemical reactions between them. This manifests itself in the form of a difference in voltage between the surfaces. This is how the potato clock works. This seems rather strange at first thought, why should some reaction at the molecular level result in an electrical effect? However, we can make some sense out of this when we consider what is happening to the molecules. One type of ion will stick to a surface more than the other. This means that a layer of charge forms on the boundary, whether it be electrons or more complicated molecules. If we get a difference in charge, we get a difference in voltage. This is shown below

This is how a potential changes between two different surfaces. In this case this is on the atomic level. These effects can be tiny (like in this case), or in much larger

We get this surface effect between water, and a pipe surface. In this case one of the ions in the water will stick to the surface more than the other. This means that we get a thin layer of charged particles stuck to the surface of the pipe, so that the rest of the liquid becomes oppositely charged. The ions in the liquid are free to move around, unlike those stuck to the wall. This is called an electrical double layer, and is best explained by a picture below;

The solid surface has a thin layer of charge, called a compact layer. The rest of the liquid has ions free to move. When water flows the compact layer cannot move due to friction, in contrast to the rest of the liquid

Because the charges in liquid can move, when the water flows through the pipe its like a current is flowing through a wire. Here the ions carry the electric charge, unlike the electrons in a material. But we still get some of the effects we see in a conventional circuit. As the ions move along the pipe, charge builds up on one side, which causes another voltage (or potential difference). I also measured this effect over my summer project. The intriguing thing about this effect is that in principle it could power some small circuits in a house. This would be a completely free way to create small amounts of electrical energy in a everyday homes.

This voltage can even be very large in very pure samples. I recorded voltages of up to 7V over the summer holidays. The amount of current in these samples were not measured in my experiments, so the amount of actual power is unlikely to be large. But certain low power applications, like LED lighting, it might be possible to power them off these simple methods. I am attempting to verify this as a side project in my a current experiments. And if I succeed, then I will have truly re-invented the water clock!

My Solid state poem...

A poem I wrote whilst sitting in a solid state lecture...


Once upon a time.,
On a miserable winters morn,
A young man went to lectures,
Where he learnt with a little yawn.

For although the lecturers tried,
and even sometimes succeeded,
It was not the day for knowledge to fly,
Even though it was badly needed.

For today was the day after,
Which the man had been to merry
And as he sat in the hall
He wished he had a sherry.

But with this crude desire,
He really couldn't see,
That even as he dreamed away,
The lecturer came up with glee.

And Poured a cup of molten lead,
Right down his blue hoodie.

So if your eyes are drooping,
And you don't feel awake,
Just keep your curtains dragging.
And stay in bed instead

The Physicists Guide to the Third Year

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. 


Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think that reality TV shows are a really good idea.


On a small and insignificant island located on this blue-green world is a population centre which, despite many attempts to improve it, resembles the results of drinking too much. The name of that population centre, according to the local ape-like creatures, is Blackpool. This is not their story.


This is the story of the ape-like creatures that inhabit the population centre named 'Manchester', and especially that of the primitive creatures who call themselves Physicists. Unbeknown to them is that the whole of what they call Physics is a drastic simplification of the far superior entity of Bistromathematics. This may in part explain how confused these primitive ape creatures got when things didn't work.


It was a house. It wasn't going to win any awards for the architecture, and it was a dreary autumn morning.

Captain Quantum awoke.

He looked out his window, and saw that his bike had a flat tyre.

He went to get toast for Breakfast, and courteously nodded towards Ms. Descartes who was carefully boiling a kettle. Flat. As Captain Quantum tucked in to his breakfast quickly, he recapped his schedule... lectures, work, wind orchestra rehearsal, flat tyre, planning scouts. He went and got dressed, and then went to get his bike outside.

He then looked down as he cycled off.

The Monk left the house that morning to the anguished wails of a cat who had just seen its kitten run over. He then went up to Captain Quantum who was bent over his poor mutilated tyre with a slight tear in his eye.

'Who would do such a TERRIBLE act?' murmered Captain Quantum
'It was probably you after you drank that home brew and cycled home last night' retorted The Monk
'Hmm.... true dat' stated Captain Quantum,
'Oh well we better get to lectures, we can't be late, for today we have the Prostetnic Lecturer for Quantum mechanics' today hurried the Monk.
 'But my bike...' whimpered Captain Quantum.
'Look, its too late for your bike, and isn't a new inner tube about £8 anyway, we gotta go... now'.
To which Captain Quantum stood up and left with the Monk. Little did Captain Quantum realise, but this was partly due to the Monks powers he had picked up from the standing monks of Fhu When, who with the powers of their minds could will the earth itself into fantastic sculptures. Little did The Monk realise that most of the powers only worked because of the clever set up of magnets, but its amazing what will happen in the universe if someone just believes it...

Quantum mechanics, according to the Comprehensive Wikipedia, "is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of much of the dual particle-like and wave-like behaviour and interactions of energy and matter''. However, according to the less rigorous, but far more popular 'The Physicists Guide to the Third Year' it is defined in two ways.

• Sadist quantum mechanics - People studying these courses are likely to feel a mixture of -

1. Awe... at the slow realization of the complexity but brilliance 
2. Wonder... at the brilliance of modern theory
3. The slow feeling of their brain dribbling out of their ear... 

• Suicidal sadist quantum mechanics- people taking these courses instead go through several stages of denial-

1. Fear... after the lectures are incomprehensible
2. Anger... at the founders of quantum mechanics/lecturer for making the course so hard
3. Bargaining... with the lecturer to help you understand
4. Depression... that you are going to fail
5. Acceptance... that you are going to fail

It also says that you should see the chapter on... 'drunkenness, parties, relaxation, insanity and most of the rest of the book' for advice on how to deal with quantum mechanics in general

It was a close run thing whether Captain Quantum and the Monk would make it to lectures on time... however, they made it on time. When they arrived they were to surprised to find two familiar faces sat at the desks already. 

'Hey Catwoman, hey Dr. Gauge, hey Mr Tetley.' said The Monk as they slid into their seats.

'Hey there Monk' casually responded Mr Tetley. 'I hate to break up the quantum mechanics party here, but I think I might have an idea as how to make things much easier for us'.

'Hi, Monk and Captain quantum, Yes we do' added Catwoman. 'All we have to do is get the answers from the exam from the vault in the office of the head of school. We got the idea from Dr. Gauge here'

'Brain the size of a planet and they ask me how they can pass the test. Pffh, what will they ask me to do next? Did you know there is a pain in my nerves down my left side' burbled Dr Gauge. But the others wern't listening.

They were staring at IT. Mighty and huge, sitting up there on the board

'What is that?' asked Mr Tetley.

'I've never seen anything so wonderful' said Captain Quantum

'That's incredible' exclaimed The Monk

It was the equation for time dependant perturbation theory. They stared. In awe. And they could feel the fury building inside of them... 

'So how are we going to pull it off?' asked The Monk

The Physicists guide to the third year also has several other sections, even featuring things that aren't quantum mechanics based. Of course some options are only based on the ideas. These do not have the same effects as the aforesaid courses. 

Electrodynamics is neither, it being a shiny classical theory. The guide says that 'although in principle the study of electrodynamics is one of the more useful and important areas of physics, this is not generally the case. This is in part due to the subject being notoriously influenced by the infamous lecturer, who has a knack for product placement.'

Little is known about what deal he currently owns with SLAC, but it is suspected that the amounts received go into 6 figures. To the everyday third year physicist this has one clear advantage. So long is spent on the advertisement of SLAC clothing ect. that there are only 3 basic questions on the exam, making the subject easy enough to study.

However, it also debates this may not equate to the pain experienced in some of the lectures...

As Catwoman had disappeared off it was down to the others to plan their act, whilst pretending to listening to the shameless endorsement of SLAC products .

'Now what we need is some sort of way to get into the office' said Mr. Tetley

'Umm we could just knock?' said Captain Quantum

'Yeah great, then he'd know we took them, that's no good.' added The Monk

'Its quite easy really', added Dr. Gauge. 'All you need to do is reverse the polarity of the neutron flow and ensure only quantum information is passed through the door. That way he'll never know. Does anyone have any salve for my left side?'

'Hmm that's quite a nice idea there.' responded Mr Tetley

They lapsed into silence as again the lecturer pointed out the OBVIOUS flaws in circular colliders. Its a shame that none of the particle physicists never really asked the particles what they wanted. They studied them but little did they realise that particles havea mind of their own. Which means the sneaky little bastards can go through 2 holes at once when you're not looking. Sneaky bastards they are known by as to the rest of the universe...

'Ok so we have an idea' said The Monk 'Now all we need is a graphene laser to create the effects we need'

'Hmm I think I saw one of those in the other building' said Mr Tetley 'We can get it after the next lecture, and then we can perform the dirty deed'

'Wait a minute, here chaps' questioned Quantum, 'don't you think this is all rather wrong? Shouldn't we just have a cup of tea instead?'

To which the instant response from the others was a look so intense that it would make Eccentrica Gollumbitz, triple breasted whore of eroticon six, slide into a hole.

The Guide has the following to say on Graphene;

"Graphene is THIN. I mean SERIOUSLY now. Imagine the thinnest thing ever, then immagine something thinner than that... I mean you thought a piece of paper was amazing, but its absolute peanuts compared with Graphene."

It then goes on to list several of these properties. It also says something about the study of Bose and Fermi gasses.

"Bose and Fermi gasses are nice. They are the result if you take only 2 ideas from quantum mechanics, and then add them to what we already know and love. And the result fixes almost all of our problems as if by magic. This is a nice area of study."

Critics have always said that the Guide favours certain areas of physics. Editors of the guide regard the critics who say this to be idiots and fools. They don't live in a gold fortress on their own personal moon.

As the group rejoined with Catwoman, they headed towards the Office of the head of school. After a quick explanation of the master plan to her they approached the door, and lined up their amazing graphene laser.

'Wow this door is made of mahogany' exclaimed Captain Quantum, 'its a shame we'll be knocking it down'

'Oh shut up.' responded The Monk. 'We're going to need to clear some space in this corridor in order to fire'. They cleared up a bit more room, and got the gun ready for firing....

'What did you do that for?' yelled Mr Tetley 'Now someone will come! We have to transfer the information quickly'. They got inside, again using the laser against the safe in order to transfer the information onto a small netbook that they happened to have with them. The alarm bells were ringing in the distance, and the could hear the footfalls of patrols of the XTREME campus security converging on the position.

'Dr Gauge, you go and distract them whilst we leg it!' said Mr. Tetley as everyone else sped down the corridor.

'Typical,' thought Dr. Gauge 'Brain the size of a planet and they ask me to sacrifice myself to security so that they can make their escape. Better get to it though'

The XTREME security stopped in front of Dr. Gauge. 'What are you doing there Mr. Explain yourself!'

'They've left me here to stop you, with nothing but my measly body. And I even have a pain in the nerves down my left side! I don't suppose you have any cream?' Droned Dr. Gauge at the security

'My God. That makes me ANGRY. Worthless people! I think just for that I might blast out this wall... and that wall... and this floor...'

There was an unappealing splat as the security guy hit the floor

'How depressing' thought Dr. Gauge.

It was at this point that far away, everyone else opened the netbook to find the answers. They blinked. They blinked again. The answer was... 42, nothing more, nothing less. No working. It must be obvious.

The guide also has statements on two other major topics of large current interest

"Any module proceeded by the prefix intro should be treated with caution. Because they are unable to teach anything actually meaningful, they instead teach you a million and one random facts. These are most easily generated from a random fact machine. What you need to do create your own random fact generator is find yourself any know it all. This is very easy for physicists. By supplying them with a good power source (3 course meal) and attaching a microphone it is possible to extract any number of unverifiable facts (c.f. WIKIPEDIA). However, these modules often make up for their sometimes almost completely random content with interesting lecturers

A famous story is told of one lecturer, who upon deciding that his students were bored, proceeded to enlightened as to the digestive movements of penguins. One student then proceeded to prove a general theory of projectile excretion, that was never truly appreciated by his peers"

Then the exams came, prepared with their lowly answer of 42

EPILOGUE

After exams the group re united,

The devastation was immense,

who knew how they had done,

but they accepted it,

and it was time to PARTAY. 

The Fantastic Adventures of Captain Quantum?!?

After 3 weeks of term time started, Captain Quantum was fairly glad that he had a chance to sit down and write something for a change. It had been an excellent start to the term for all around, with lots happening...

Mmm relaxing on the sofa. There's nothing like it. Shame my sofas aren't so comfy

Freshers Welcome Week

Captain Quantum started this one off not as well as he hoped, with a foul dose of pre-Freshers Welcome flu, and a few long train rides. But that was not to deter from freshers week, with a pudding party and a fresh cask of ginger beer to be enjoyed by all. As The Monk, Miss Descartes and Mr Row prepared for the party they wondered what diabetic-ally fuelled feast awaited them. As the guests poured in the puddings piled up, there were cakes, tarts, torts, puddings, cookies and many more fantastic concoctions. There was certainly no shortage of food there. As the people piled in the conversation entwined and got more tipsy on some parts, but yet somehow far more serious in others. Soon most were stuffed beyond limit, but deeply satisfied by the bounty that they had consumed.

You were all thinking it. But I couldn't say it in type

The time flew by, and soon enough it was time for the party to quieten out of respect. So as slowly different people drifted off into different directions> But first and foremost, Essex Boy, Mr Row, Mounty, Catwoman and the Tensorator went to Baa Bar. There more alcohol was consumed, by pitcher and pint glass. But after a little bit of a fail on Mr Row's part, and a fun little takeaway, we headed back home.

Alas, for Captain Quantum there was no time to rest his groggy head. He headed back to university to continue his summer project in the condensed matter group. Sometimes life is just tricky

Physoc Pub Crawl

That Thursday was fun times for all in the Physics department, with the annual Physoc freshers pub crawl. Despite Captain Quantum being forced to arrive late due to an important scouting meeting, he made a brave venture through a rainy moss side in order to get there at all. So he met up with a variety of friends, including Free Willy and Mr Twinnings, as well as some older friends like pasta man. But this pub crawl is all about the new members, and soon enough I joined people catting away with their white shirts.

I'm slightly disappointed that Manchester isn't the first result for Physsoc on google. 

The Tensorator and Essex Boy were full swing, chatting and drinking away when Captain Quantum arrived. It was quite a sight to behold. A full 15 electrons present in the Tensorator, it was a good fun times on the Garrett. It wasn't long before it was time to move on to a different place, Baa Bar. As we entered people grabbed a free shot or two and got a little more tipsy. And the night wasn't over yet! Before long people were all over the place. And 

FECK...

A.R.S.E....

DRINK...

Lyme park - Impressive buildings (not these though)

In some ways sums up the Annual Reunion Social Extraveganza. There was Drink. There was Fire. There was some gossip. But most importantly of all... there was an adventure playground at Lyme Park. Never had there been such joy from so many of the SSAGO bunch. Despite it being a cold weekend, the fire burned bright both nights, as people sang deep into the early hours of the morning. It was a nice chance to catch up in the freezing cold of the peak district. But it really was very... very... cold.

Nobel Prize

Mmm Shiny Gold. It would be more valuable made of Graphene (slight irony)

If you don't know about this already... really? Just look at any physicists facebook from the past couple of days...


Bowling

Not just the president of the united states.

Another SSAGO event, and another chance to meet some of our fantastic new members. After meeting at the alley, an exchanging of shoes, and some liquil libation, we went full on into the bowling. Several impressive frames, several unimpressive frames and some spectacular fails later we were enjoying ourselves thoroughly. It was later after a rather few more drinks that we saw some of the more spectacular showboating that a bowling alley had ever seen. Some of those spectacular shots even managed to hit something...