Category Archives: Physics

Spring!

Wow, a month and a day passed since my last posting… and winter turned into spring.

After returning from the USA and Canada last summer, I often replied to questions about our vacation that I loved the area we traveled to, but that we’d seen more snow in Canada in July than we had had during the past two winters here in our German Mittelgebirge. Well, it seems like this winter was out to prove me wrong. We had snow several times, for several days or even weeks at a time, and it was a lot more snow than we had during the past two winters. The first snow came in November, and the last bist was just a short while ago.

Yesterday and today were the first days that felt like spring. It was decidedly warmer than before, and even sunny. The crocuses in our garden were blooming, and the air smelled like spring. André and I went for a walk (not a very long one because I am battling a stubborn bout of sinusitis at the moment) today and enjoyed every bit of it even though it was quite windy on top of the hills. It was really great to see the catkins on trees and bushes and others signs of spring. Also, I saw a red kite for the first time since they moved south for the winter. (Take a look at the great photo on Wikipedia!)

Last year we had snow as late as Easter, so we’ll see how long the spring weather holds (it started to rain tonight), but the longer days and better weather do much to improve my mood. Now if only there weren’t four very busy weeks with a lot of work between now and the Easter holidays… I’m already looking forward to a couple of weeks off from school.

André took some photos today, but hasn’t uploaded them yet, so here’s one he took last year.

Change.

Fortunately, here in Germany we are six hours ahead of Washington, so I was able to watch the inauguration live online. By the way, it’s really amusing to hear the BBC’s reporter ask a couple their names and then say “pleased to meet you!” So very British. ;-)

I have to say that I was really moved. I felt like I have witnessed history in the making, live. This might be one of those moments that you later talk about, starting with “I remember exactly where I was when…”

I’ve felt that way once before, and that was on November 9th, 1989. I was fourteen years old. When I came home in the evening, I heard on TV that the GDR government had opened the borders. It was hard to believe what I saw on TV that night and the following days. Even weeks before noone would have thought that to be possible, and yet it happened.

I bet that a lot of people in the US also believed that it would be a very long time before a non-white president would be elected, and yet it happened last November.

Edited to add:

Take a look at The Big Picture – 48 photos of the inauguration and of people around the world watching it.

Large Hadron Collider

Anlässlich der Inbetriebnahme des Large Hadron Collider (LHC) (mehr bei Wikipedia), an dem morgen erstmals Teilchen beschleunigt werden sollen, habe ich gestern in meinen Oberstufen-Physikkursen Teilchenbeschleuniger und speziell den LHC behandelt. In der 13 nehmen wir sowieso gerade Teilchenphysik durch, da passte es perfekt zum Thema, und in der 11 habe ich im Leistungskurs einen Exkurs gemacht, da man meines Erachtens aktuelle Ereignisse im Unterricht ruhig aufgreifen sollte.

Den Schülern habe ich zwei Filme über den LHC gezeigt, die man bei Welt der Physik findet: Der LHC-Beschleuniger bei CERN mit LHC, eine Zeitmaschine (FLV) und LHC, die supraleitenden Magnete (FLV), der tatsächlich nicht nur über die Magnete berichtet, sondern den genauen Aufbau des Beschleunigers beschreibt.

Als Hausaufgabe habe ich aufgegeben, den LHC-Rap bei Youtube zu finden und anzuschauen und zu -hören. Das Video landete kürzlich auf Platz eins der Top Ten Physik-Videos bei Wired Science. (Link via MetaFilter)

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