Interferometry data from Christchurch earthquake

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The PALSAR instrument aboard the Japanese Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) has produced some imagery of the Christchurch earthquake.

The ALOS-PALSAR instrument is an interferometer (technically an InSAR instrument) that measures the height between the satellite and the ground. The coloured bands show the variation in the height of the ground. One complete cycle of colour shows a displacement of the ground from −6 cm to +6 cm from the position it “should” be in.

Where bands are closely packed together the displacement of the ground is varying a great deal in a small distance, usually leading to greater destruction.

Programme for International Student Assessment

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The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study is conducted every three years by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD is a group of thirty-four countries with “advanced economies”, which basically translates to “club for rich countries”.

The PISA study gives 470 000 15 year-olds a test in literacy, numeracy and science and has just released the results of the 2009 study. The UK comes out above average in science and reading, but below average in mathematics.

I was quite interested in the correlation between between scores:

  • Between science and mathematics was 97.1%
  • Between science and reading was 98.1%
  • Between reading and mathematics was 94.8%

I had expected the highest degree of correlation to be between science and mathematics, but that is probably a physicist’s bias, as maths is such an important part of physics.

Penrose tiling

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Sir Roger Penrose is a mathematical physicist best known for his work on theories of general relativity and cosmology. He won the Wolf Prize in 1988 with Stephen Hawking for his work on singularities and black holes; the Institute of Physics’s Paul Dirac Medal and Prize in 1989; and the Royal Society’s Copley Medal in 2008 for “his beautiful and original insights into many areas of mathematics and mathematical physics.”

He is also the inventor of Penrose Tiling, a unique tiling pattern with five-fold symmetry, so I was delighted to discover this building as part of the Greenwich Peninsula complex outside the O2 Millenium Dome.

Almost the entire surface of the Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication building is covered with a Penrose-inspired pattern. Penrose previously sued Kleenex for using his tiling pattern on their quilted toilet paper, but I imagine that Ravensbourne’s architects, Foreign Office, checked with him first.

Time on the Moon

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I was surprised to find that the amount of time spent on the Moon by Neil Armstrong and “Buzz” Aldrin on the Apollo 11 mission was really quite small when compared with the time spent by astronauts on subsequent Apollo missions.

Only 12 people (all men, unfortunately) have ever set foot on the Moon. The person to spend the most time on the Moon is Gene Cernan, the commander of the Apollo 17 mission. He left the Apollo lander before the Apollo 17 Lunar Module pilot, NASA geologist Harrison Schmitt, and re-entered the lander after Schmitt. He is therefore also the last person to set foot on the Moon, all the way back in 1972.

Gene Cernan cruising the lunar surface in the lunar rover

Cernan also co-holds (with Thomas Stafford and John Young) the record for the fastest speed achieved by a human being, as the Apollo 10 probe on which he was a passenger reached a speed of 11.1 kilometres per second (24 790 mph) on its return to Earth after orbiting the Moon. The Apollo 10 Command Module is now on display at the Science Museum in London.