SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Convenor Cherry Lewis
Contact: monmouthu3amembership@gmail.com
Contact: monmouthu3amembership@gmail.com
Our meetings usually comprise presentations on a scientific or technical topic, followed by a question and answer session – and then a cup of tea! Visits to places of interest are also arranged once or twice a year, usually during the spring or summer months.
The group meets on the 2nd Tuesday of every month, except August, from 2.30 to 4.00 pm.
Meetings are normally held at Mitchel Troy Village Hall but during these abnormal times we are meeting online via Zoom. The subscription of £10 per year covers hire costs and speaker expenses. Meetings are open to the general membership for a fee of £2 per meeting.
We are a friendly group and warmly welcome new members. No qualifications are required, just an interest in science and technology in its broadest sense.
The group meets on the 2nd Tuesday of every month, except August, from 2.30 to 4.00 pm.
Meetings are normally held at Mitchel Troy Village Hall but during these abnormal times we are meeting online via Zoom. The subscription of £10 per year covers hire costs and speaker expenses. Meetings are open to the general membership for a fee of £2 per meeting.
We are a friendly group and warmly welcome new members. No qualifications are required, just an interest in science and technology in its broadest sense.
Next meeting: Tuesday January 12th at 2.30pm via Zoom
Rockets, Satellites Space Lasers and the Internet.
How Space X plans to connect everyone everywhere.
A presentation by Mark Handley, Professor of Networked Systems
at University College London
Rockets, Satellites Space Lasers and the Internet.
How Space X plans to connect everyone everywhere.
A presentation by Mark Handley, Professor of Networked Systems
at University College London
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Mark Handley will introduce us to hugely ambitious plans to ring the Earth with tens of thousands of low orbit satellites interconnected by space lasers. This will facilitate a global high-speed internet, connecting people all over the world in places that optical fibre will never reach. |
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Please register for this talk by Sunday 10 January by emailing Cherry Lewis on monmouthu3amembership@gmail.com
Forthcoming meetings
9 February: “Artificial Intelligence – what’s behind it and what are the risks and benefits”
by Leigh Edwards.
9 March: “How your phone is seducing you” by Dr Tom Chatfield, author, tech philosopher
and educator.
9 February: “Artificial Intelligence – what’s behind it and what are the risks and benefits”
by Leigh Edwards.
9 March: “How your phone is seducing you” by Dr Tom Chatfield, author, tech philosopher
and educator.
Past Meetings and Trips
8th December 2020
The Bloodhound Project by Allan Reid
We had a fascinating talk by Allan Reid about Land Speed Record attempts by the British car called the Bloodhound. Allan is a STEM and Bloodhound Ambassador for South Wales. He is one of hundreds of volunteers who share their passion in this project and try to engage young people in STEM projects.
The Bloodhound Programme is a registered charity that receives no government funding. It started up in 2008 and split off from the Bloodhound SSC company when it went into administration in 2019.
Allan gave us a history of the land speed records which began surprisingly as far back as 1898 with an electric vehicle that reached 39mph. For the first half of the 20th century land speed records were dominated by British vehicles but in 1969 the records were held by American vehicles when jet propulsion became prevalent.
Another Briton, Richard Noble, became the holder of the land speed record between 1983 and 1997. He crashed in his first car Thrust 1 but achieved a new land speed record of 633mph in Thrust 2 powered by a Rolls Royce jet turbine. In 1997 it was Andy Green who drove Thrust SSC supersonic by breaking the sound barrier at 763mph.
The Bloodhound SSC project had a vision to design and build a car that would reach speeds of 1000mph. CAD (computer-aided design) was used to design the car and its components. We learnt CFD (computational fluid dynamics) is used to optimise the shape of the car and reduce drag while 3D printing is used to build various components including the titanium steering wheel.
Ian Warhurst bought Bloodhound SSC and the IPR in 2019 and the car in its new livery reached 628mph on a new track in South Africa. It is hoped that in the next few years, with the appropriate funding, that the team will return to South Africa for an attempt to reach the car’s design speed of 1000mph. Just don’t blink or you’ll miss it. Charles Emes
10th November 2020
On the Trail of the Ice Age in the West Midlands Conurbation and Herefordshire -- Prof. Ian Fairchild.
Ian delivered a far reaching talk linking broader geological research into ice ages to what happened during the most recent advance and retreat of glaciers in the West Midlands Conurbation and western Herefordshire.
Within the broader research he embraced the work of historical figures like Charles Darwin and Louis Agassiz, the latter first recognising the significance of ice worn pebbles and erratics moved by glaciers.
He then turned to the work of the Rev. Crosskey and his Erratics Block Group who first mapped the erratics found in the West Midlands in the late 1800s. This work is being updated by the Earth Heritage Trust [of which Ian is the chair]
He showed us how the chemical and physical analysis of these erratics has become a key factor in determining the source and scale of the glaciers that impacted into the more local areas to our north.
Finally he gave us the details of an ongoing lottery funded EHT and Wildlife Trust project in western Herefordshire. This is identifying and researching ponds which originated in depressions—kettle holes -- in the landscape caused by the slow melting of ice blocks. Jim Handley
Tuesday 6th October 2020
Game Theory, Strategies, Decisions and the Prisoner’s Dilemma – Phil Charlesworth
Phil Charlesworth is becoming a regular contributor to the science group having previously talked about amateur rocketry and solar powered flight. He turned a seemingly opaque topic into a simple to follow mixture of history, familiar games and only a tiny amount of formal mathematics.
The history of games and game theory can be traced from 1838 and then through the mid twentieth century when the subject was formalised by mathematician John von Neumann.
A game has two or more competitors and has some form of structure or rules. One example used was rock-paper-scissors where one player’s gain is the other’s loss (zero sum). Over time both players will expect to win half the games. Another example is where two companies compete for market share and can advertise and gain business unless the other company does the same, in which case neither wins and both suffer the cost of the advertising.
Although described as games such thinking has many serious applications and has been widely used in economics, but also auctions, biology and most seriously politics. We were asked to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy was faced with Kruschev, leader of the USSR, in a stand-off over a missile base on Cuba. This can be analysed as a “game” with competing players and a small range of strategies. Fortunately the outcome for the world was “benign”.
Modern “game theory” has developed with ever more complex situations and the availability of serious computing resources. There have been several Nobel prize winners in the field.
A question afterwards related to the current pandemic and we can all hope that game theory might contribute to an optimal solution. Michael Bone
September 8th 2020
River Usk: Source to sea. Part 1: Black Mountain to Abergavenny
This presentation given by Alan Bowring, Development Officer for Fforest Fawr Geopark, took us on an hours’ long virtual journey from the source of the River Usk in the Black Mountain to the point it reaches Abergavenny. Each stop throughout the length of the journey was accompanied by detailed information, beautiful photographs and useful map references. As well as highlighting the salient geological aspects, we learnt much about its archaeological, historical and industrial heritage. Our attention was drawn to important Grade 1 listed buildings and bridges along the way.
From the point of flowing out of the Usk reservoir, the river and its tributaries have been designated as a SAC ( special area of conservation) and SSSI ( site of special scientific interest). Unsullied by industrial effluent, the water is pure enough to sustain a wide variety of aquatic life, making it attractive to anglers (George Melly amongst them) and it is also home to otters.
Alan had interesting comments, observations and anecdotes to share, which we will take with us on our next visit to the area. We are very grateful to Alan and his colleagues in the Geopark for their work in conserving this unique environment. Valerie Conniff
The Bloodhound Project by Allan Reid
We had a fascinating talk by Allan Reid about Land Speed Record attempts by the British car called the Bloodhound. Allan is a STEM and Bloodhound Ambassador for South Wales. He is one of hundreds of volunteers who share their passion in this project and try to engage young people in STEM projects.
The Bloodhound Programme is a registered charity that receives no government funding. It started up in 2008 and split off from the Bloodhound SSC company when it went into administration in 2019.
Allan gave us a history of the land speed records which began surprisingly as far back as 1898 with an electric vehicle that reached 39mph. For the first half of the 20th century land speed records were dominated by British vehicles but in 1969 the records were held by American vehicles when jet propulsion became prevalent.
Another Briton, Richard Noble, became the holder of the land speed record between 1983 and 1997. He crashed in his first car Thrust 1 but achieved a new land speed record of 633mph in Thrust 2 powered by a Rolls Royce jet turbine. In 1997 it was Andy Green who drove Thrust SSC supersonic by breaking the sound barrier at 763mph.
The Bloodhound SSC project had a vision to design and build a car that would reach speeds of 1000mph. CAD (computer-aided design) was used to design the car and its components. We learnt CFD (computational fluid dynamics) is used to optimise the shape of the car and reduce drag while 3D printing is used to build various components including the titanium steering wheel.
Ian Warhurst bought Bloodhound SSC and the IPR in 2019 and the car in its new livery reached 628mph on a new track in South Africa. It is hoped that in the next few years, with the appropriate funding, that the team will return to South Africa for an attempt to reach the car’s design speed of 1000mph. Just don’t blink or you’ll miss it. Charles Emes
10th November 2020
On the Trail of the Ice Age in the West Midlands Conurbation and Herefordshire -- Prof. Ian Fairchild.
Ian delivered a far reaching talk linking broader geological research into ice ages to what happened during the most recent advance and retreat of glaciers in the West Midlands Conurbation and western Herefordshire.
Within the broader research he embraced the work of historical figures like Charles Darwin and Louis Agassiz, the latter first recognising the significance of ice worn pebbles and erratics moved by glaciers.
He then turned to the work of the Rev. Crosskey and his Erratics Block Group who first mapped the erratics found in the West Midlands in the late 1800s. This work is being updated by the Earth Heritage Trust [of which Ian is the chair]
He showed us how the chemical and physical analysis of these erratics has become a key factor in determining the source and scale of the glaciers that impacted into the more local areas to our north.
Finally he gave us the details of an ongoing lottery funded EHT and Wildlife Trust project in western Herefordshire. This is identifying and researching ponds which originated in depressions—kettle holes -- in the landscape caused by the slow melting of ice blocks. Jim Handley
Tuesday 6th October 2020
Game Theory, Strategies, Decisions and the Prisoner’s Dilemma – Phil Charlesworth
Phil Charlesworth is becoming a regular contributor to the science group having previously talked about amateur rocketry and solar powered flight. He turned a seemingly opaque topic into a simple to follow mixture of history, familiar games and only a tiny amount of formal mathematics.
The history of games and game theory can be traced from 1838 and then through the mid twentieth century when the subject was formalised by mathematician John von Neumann.
A game has two or more competitors and has some form of structure or rules. One example used was rock-paper-scissors where one player’s gain is the other’s loss (zero sum). Over time both players will expect to win half the games. Another example is where two companies compete for market share and can advertise and gain business unless the other company does the same, in which case neither wins and both suffer the cost of the advertising.
Although described as games such thinking has many serious applications and has been widely used in economics, but also auctions, biology and most seriously politics. We were asked to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. President Kennedy was faced with Kruschev, leader of the USSR, in a stand-off over a missile base on Cuba. This can be analysed as a “game” with competing players and a small range of strategies. Fortunately the outcome for the world was “benign”.
Modern “game theory” has developed with ever more complex situations and the availability of serious computing resources. There have been several Nobel prize winners in the field.
A question afterwards related to the current pandemic and we can all hope that game theory might contribute to an optimal solution. Michael Bone
September 8th 2020
River Usk: Source to sea. Part 1: Black Mountain to Abergavenny
This presentation given by Alan Bowring, Development Officer for Fforest Fawr Geopark, took us on an hours’ long virtual journey from the source of the River Usk in the Black Mountain to the point it reaches Abergavenny. Each stop throughout the length of the journey was accompanied by detailed information, beautiful photographs and useful map references. As well as highlighting the salient geological aspects, we learnt much about its archaeological, historical and industrial heritage. Our attention was drawn to important Grade 1 listed buildings and bridges along the way.
From the point of flowing out of the Usk reservoir, the river and its tributaries have been designated as a SAC ( special area of conservation) and SSSI ( site of special scientific interest). Unsullied by industrial effluent, the water is pure enough to sustain a wide variety of aquatic life, making it attractive to anglers (George Melly amongst them) and it is also home to otters.
Alan had interesting comments, observations and anecdotes to share, which we will take with us on our next visit to the area. We are very grateful to Alan and his colleagues in the Geopark for their work in conserving this unique environment. Valerie Conniff
Science and Technology Meetings
2019-2020
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Science and Technology Meetings 2018-2019
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Science and Technology Meetings 2017-2018
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