It appears that a similar situation to the English GCSE has occurred in the Science GCSE. The grade boundaries were changed part-way through the year.
Apparently, year 10 pupils who sat the AQA board chemistry and biology modules this January needed up to 11 more marks to get an A* grade than those who sat the same modules in June.
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The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skills. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.
I strongly agree with this. Quite often a problem is not important in itself, but rather the tools developed in its solution are pivotal to science.
Mathematics
Great mathematical examples here are lemmas that go on to be more important than their original application.
One great example that springs to mind is the Poincaré lemma: “All closed differential k-forms (k > 0) are locally exact”.
Plenty of other examples exist. The point is, although initially the lemmas seem very technical and narrow, they turn out to be of independent interest and very powerful in unexpected ways.
Particle physics and space science
Possibly a better example is that of spin-off technologies from particle physics and space exploration. For example experimental particle physics has brought us, sterilisation methods, non-destructive testing, cancer treatments, medical imaging techniques and so on.
Wider society and culture
Something that should not be overlooked is the impact of science and mathematics on culture. Advances in mathematics and science can change our outlook on the Universe and shape what we are. To quote Robert R. Wilson, who was the first director of Fermilab, when asked to justify the cost of the experiments to the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, said
It has only to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. It has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things we really venerate in our country and are patriotic about. It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending.
Simon Singh has displayed on his website some mathematics cartoons. All are quite funny.
You can find them here.
A new study published today (Friday 14 September) in Environmental Research Letters, compares the latest seasonal forecast system to the one previously used [1]. The conclusion is that the latest models can better warn the UK of extreme winter weather conditions.
The winter of 2009–2010 was known as “The Big Freeze” here in the UK and was part of the severe winter weather in Europe. It was the coldest winter since 1978-79, with a mean temperature of 1.5 °C.
Picture of the UK taken on the 7th January 2010.
The new model takes into account sudden stratospheric warmings (SSWs), which are known to be responsible for cold surface conditions. SSWs happen when the polar vortex of westerly (eastward) winds in the winter hemisphere suddenly slows down or even reverses direction, accompanied by a rise of stratospheric temperature by several tens of kelvins.
References
[1] D R Fereday, A Maidens, A Arribas, A A Scaife and J R Knight. Seasonal forecasts of northern hemisphere winter 2009/10. (2012) Environ. Res. Lett. 7 034031
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Apparently about a quarter the UK Russell Group Universities still have undergraduate student places, as the new tuition fees regime comes in.
…it is likely fewer people will go to university this year.
Higher Education Minister David Willetts
UCAS say that there are more than 26,000 university courses with empty places, compared with 20,000 at this time last year.
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The QS World University Rankings have been released and four UK universities come in the top ten. There are 18 UK universities in the top 100, showing that for quite a small Island we have have a good reputation. The warning is however, that due to changes in the funding UK universities may struggle in the ranking in the future.
The top 10 world universities are listed below:
Random walks can be found throughout nature in many different contexts. For example they been used in ecology, economics, psychology, computer science, physics, chemistry, and biology. Above is an example of a (simple) random walk I created. There is 8 directions to this walk and 1000000 points.
The random walk above is an example of a Markov process, that means that the next step only depends on the present step. Such processes have “no memory”.
Random walks are closely related to Brownian motion, which is the physical phenomenon of minute particles diffusing in a fluid.
Random walks are examples of discrete fractals. They show self-similarity on large scales (such as in the picture above), but on the smaller scales the discrete nature of the grid becomes apparent. See the picture below.
Here we have another random walk generated in exactly the same way as the previous one, but not just 1000 points. One can consider this as a “zoom in” on the random walk with a million points. The finite step size is apparent and the resemblance to genuine fractals is far less clear.
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On Sunday 23 September 2012 the London Mathematical Society again opens its doors to the public as part of Open House London 2012. Last year’s event attracted over 300 visitors and is an opportunity to visit one of the many impressive buildings in Russell Square.
Find out more here.
“The UK science budget is about £5.5bn each year… on a government spend of over 600 billion. That’s for everything – medical research, Cern, engineering, arts and humanities; the whole thing. It’s below most global averages, the OECD’s for example,”
Prof. Brian Cox, University of Manchester
Prof. Brian Cox was speaking at the British Science Festival in Aberdeen. The Manchester University researcher was speaking before his guest lecture at the festival.
He also pointed out that public engagement with science was vital to the future sustainability and growth of British science.
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Horizon: How Small is the Universe? is on BBC Two at 21:00 BST on Monday 3 September. Or catch up afterwards via iPlayer (UK only).
But theoretical physicists prefer the idea that the particles are not in fact round, but tiny “strings”, like bits of elastic.
Andy Parker,Cambridge University
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