Blog Posts
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Liquid crystal displays (LCDs)
These types of displays work in a clever way. Light passes through a polarising filter, through a liquid crystal, and then through a second polarising filter with the plane if polarisation orientated 90° to the first. The light then reflects off a mirror and follows the return path through the polarising filter, liquid crystal and…
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The most stressful job in the world
… is not teaching. Well, that’s my experience, but I understand everyone and every situation is unique. I have had the good fortune of always teaching in grammar schools (except when I was training). I’ve heard horror stories from colleagues about how stressful it can be working in other schools, managing poor behaviour, jumping though…
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Being kind on the internet
On Wednesday I uploaded two videos about issues with the transformer equation taught to GCSE and A Level students. Little did I expect but YouTube’s algorithm picked them up and thousands of people watched them. Consequently, dozens of people decided to comment on them. That’s fine, of course, but many of the comments were actually…
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Maintaining backwards compatibility
A hobby of mine is writing spreadsheets that maintain compatibility with archaic and obsolete software. Recently, a bug was discovered in one of my spreadsheets, which I had to fix by losing compatibility with Excel 97.
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The end of Bloganuary 2024
At the start of the year I set myself a challenge to post to my weblog every day. I did it!
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Five revision tips for Physics
Physics is a subject where students can always improve if they practice routinely. In this post I give some tips on how to revise Physics effectively.
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The Mother of the Nuclear Atom
Lise Meitner’s first duty was to science. From a supportive and encouraging childhood, she grew into one of the most remarkable physicists of the 20th Century, whilst keeping her moral integrity intact.
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Civilian radiation accidents in the 20th Century
Here is a short list of accidents that involve civilians being exposed to ionising radiation before the year 2000. Why did I stop there? The list was getting too long and too repetitive. And that is really concerning!
