M.J. Dunlavy

So many of his films (especially the ones he made with Masaki Kobayashi) can be summed up with this scene from "Hara-Kiri". One of the greats. His work in "The Human Condition" (all ~10hrs of it!) is some of the best film acting ever.

The contest is open to all Saint Mary's students, faculty, staff and alumni.
Science is everywhere! We're looking for images from labs & workplaces, nature, scientific visualization and storytelling.

Enter now! smu.ca/photocontest

In our Time of Drought, your sacrifice to the Weather Gods is appreciated.

Colder temp means that the band gap is larger (ambient thermal energy is lessened) and therefore more energy is required to "jump" it. Higher energy means higher wavelength, which means a colour further along towards violet in the visible spectrum.

Did you know the colour of an LED is dependent on the band gap of the doped semiconductor inside?

And that that band gap is temperature dependent?

And!

If you (gently) dunk said LED in liqN2, neat things happen!

#iTeachPhysics

#iTeachPhysics

YouTube video by SMUPhysics What is the Meissner Effect?

New Video Alert!

The Meissner Effect!

youtu.be/QuR39XYNazA

Trust me, I was ready to turn around and go home if I couldn't start my office kettle.

Definitely stay out of elevators, but this power outage polygon is severely overestimating the area of concern. There's no power from Coburg to Inglis, but power is on at SMU

Posting later today

No Strings Attached!

Never not satisfying.

Outtake. Trying and failing to get a magnet to spin on a superconductor without knocking it off the disc. Three misses is a strikeout!

Let's all just take a second to appreciate this oscillating drop of liquid nitrogen. Ok? Is that too much to ask?

I'll be at the AST conference in Halifax tomorrow sharing free resources for teachers from Star Finder - the David Lane Astronomy Outreach Program. I'm finishing up my presentation now and tearing up over slides about Dave. He was really great. I miss him. He'd be thrilled about that we've created.

I was once in a gallery in the Louvre when the security system kicked in and shut off the whole room. Automatic doors and alarms. There was another time when we watched someone walk painting to painting setting off the alarm on each. Were they an employee?

If you miss the video analysis that was available in Logger Pro that is not included in Graphical Analysis, try Sigmund (noragulfa.com/sigmund). This is a FREE, web-based app that will run on Chromebooks. #iteachphysics

Plottertron Home Graphic

For context, Plottertron is our in-house plotting program for 1st yr labs. He works in any browser and performs weighted lst-sq fits.

Learning a 3d modelling package for another project and got carried away.

Plottertron looks mad to be in 3D.

There is a frankly disturbing close-up pic of my hand on instagram right now and I don't care for it.

(My hand, I mean. The photo was posted with permission.)

Weather Model Projection

Halifax:Rain::Neo:Bullets

Disgusting behaviour at the best of times, really.

If I only listen to music by The Residents while editing a single lab experiment in a manual for next term, will students be able to spot which one?

Single-card credit from "The Thing" (1982) for "A. Wilford Brimley"

"Wait, are you telling me THE Wilford Brimley plays Blair?"
"No, just ..."

Green laser beam being internally reflected multiple times in a semi-circular pice of glass.

Been undergoing a lot of personal internal reflection...

Super slo-mo (1000fps) and super zoomed-in clip of a water ripples. The low resolution and weird CCD-induced color scheme leave something reminiscent of fireworks!

#iTeachPhysics

New Star Finder Newsletter!

sway.cloud.microsoft/hYupvkznJi9o...

In this issue:
🔭 Highlights from the first Star Finder Teachers' Workshop
📚 New astronomy lesson plans and resources now available
☁️ Upcoming content on Bluesky!
🌟 Star Finder at the Association of Science Teachers Conference

Contradictory product description.

😠

Now that term is finally underway, hopefully video production will increase from its current moribund rate. Here's a test shot from this morning: