Maths and Physics Group
Equation of the month: Technically this string of gobbledegook is a proposition, not an equation, and it is taken from Principia Mathematica by Whitehead and Russell. “From this proposition it will follow, when arithmetical addition has been defined, that 1 + 1 = 2.” … “The above proposition is occasionally useful.”
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Apr 10
Dave Waymont: Bell's Inequality In 1935 Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen published a paper that highlighted what they thought was a problem with quantum mechanics: it seemed to imply some non-local behaviour should take place or "spooky action at a distance" as Einstein later called it. In 1964 John Bell derived an inequality that would settle the matter: it should be possible, with a well-designed experiment, to prove whether quantum mechanics is spooky or not. A suitable experiment was performed in 1982 by Alain Aspect who showed that quantum mechanics really is spooky. This talk outlines the experiment and derives Bell's Inequality. There will then (hopefully) be time for a short discussion. May 8
Phil MacFarlane: TBD - but probably financial maths June 12
How does that work? Together we'll try to work out how a piece of Victorian engineering works. The schedule may change, so please check again closer to the date
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The Maths and Physics Group meets on the 2nd Wednesday of the month in the Lower Classroom at the Holy Trinity Parish Centre from 9.30 am until 10.45 am. Most meetings consist of one of our members giving a talk on a subject of their choice, but we are open to suggestions. There is also a WhatsApp group for people to ask each other questions, or to point out interesting news articles or books they've read.
New members are very welcome. You don't need to be Einstein be a member! You just need to be interested in maths or physics (or engineering, technology, astronomy ... ). Contact mathsphys@dorchesteru3a.org.uk for further information.
Previous Talks
Heat and Thermodynamics
Video: Geometry of Chaos Sphere-packing in n-dimensions Experiment: Determining the wavelength of a laser Polynomials and (Aero) Planes Radio Telescopes "Welcome to the Loxodrome" (!) The Wonderful World of Non-dimensional Groups Covert Radar Detection of Stealth Planes The Steam Engine The Concept of a Field Audio Compression and MP3 Lightning ! Galileo Trisecting the Angle |
Blockchain, BitCoin & NFTs
Three talks on books:
Bat Sonar – An Engineering Perspective Genetic Algorithms Do the Angles of a Triangle Add Up to Two Right Angles The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics Measuring the Earth Zipf’s Law and Benford's Law Short Introduction to Dirac and a Physics Experiment Summing Some Series and Quantum Physics The Role of Geometry in Understanding the World |
Lastly, a bit of fun ...
Please make all the usual assumptions, and don't worry if you can't solve the problems! Solutions can be found in this pdf.
The questions are best viewed on a desktop as they may contain pictures that cannot be scaled easily for a mobile.
Two new problems will appear next month.
The questions are best viewed on a desktop as they may contain pictures that cannot be scaled easily for a mobile.
Two new problems will appear next month.
Page maintained by Dave Waymont