One of Albert Einstein’s greatest contributions to science was the theory of special relativity. Many of us have heard of this theory, but do you actually know what it means? It is half of the overall theory of relativity; special relativity is concerned with constant speeds, whereas the other part, general relativity, is concerned with …
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Does being accident-prone run in families?
Most of you have probably noticed that I recently sprained my ankle and am therefore currently on crutches. And the people who have known me for multiple years will know that this is not the first time that I’ve been on crutches and that I’ve also injured my arms/hands multiple times. I think at this …
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The Great Green Wall
Below is a picture of the Sahel, a transitional strip of land measuring 8000 km long and 15 km wide. It sits below dry desert land (Sahara Desert) and above tropical savanna (Sudanian Savanna). Countries that lie in it include Mali, Niger and Senegal. As a result of desertification, population growth and unsustainable agricultural practices …
Put your phone away!
In Psych over the last two weeks, we have had to examine and understand the impact that mobile phones have on our learning. When I first started reading the assigned material, I rolled my eyes. This was just another push for us to get off our phones in lectures as phones were a distraction. I …
Where Did All the Carbon and Nitrogen Come From?
Carbon and nitrogen are two of the most abundant and important elements for life on Earth. Carbon is the basis of all living organisms, our atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, and humans are made up of 18% carbon and 3% nitrogen. But where did these elements come from? When intermediate mass stars, like our Sun, reach …
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How Imaginary Rabbits Turned into Maths
It may be surprising that hypothetical rabbits were the cause of one of the most famous mathematical results, but it’s true. I know many people don’t love maths (although you should) but don’t get scared off. As long as you can handle addition, you’ll be alright, trust me. You’ve probably heard of the Fibonacci sequence, …
Antibiotic Resistance… AKA Doomsday
I’m sure that at one point in your existence you have come across the term ‘antibiotic apocalypse’. Maybe you were reading an article on it whilst inhaling your 3rd bottle of antibiotics for that tiny chest cold that you had. But what do you actually know about this so called ‘apocalypse’? What actually is it …
From Correlation to Causation (2): The Origin of Statistics
Nowadays it is statistics that helps us to determine if we should accept any hypothesis in science. Before statistics was introduced, scientists hardly do more than one trials in experiments, so there were not so much reliability in their results–they mixed up the systematic errors and random errors, so 1. it becomes hard for these …
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The survivorship from 9800m (2): Survivorship Bias
Background: One ordinary people may become a hero someday. As time proceeds, with probability acting ubiquitously, nothing is impossible, and we need to be ready for any sort of critical situation at any time. On 14th of May in 2018, the captain Chuanjian Liu was flying his flight, 3U8633, at 9800m altitude above the Tibetan …
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The survivorship from 9800m (1): The Expected Value of Death
Background: On 14th of May in 2018, the captain Chuanjian Liu was flying his flight, 3U8633, at 9800m altitude above the Tibetan Plateau. About half an hour after he has taken off, at 7 am, ‘one of the cockpit windshields on the copilot’s side blew off during the climb towards cruising altitude’, after some cracks …
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Science Scholars 2019 