Zone Plus - day 2

Street Art and Cooking today. 

Numbers are down but everyone had a great time. Here’s a video of the catwalk in the Street Dance



All yesterday’s photos now on the Zone Plus website and today’s Street Dance ones. Cooking to follow.

Great first day at Zone Plus

Graffiti – or rather Street Art – with Will Rosie from all about art.

Tomorrow: Street Dance and cooking

Earthquake-proof buildings – British engineering

The scientific world has roundly denounced the jailing of the Italian scientists for failing to forecast the earthquake and the entire leadership of the Italian disaster-warning agency has resigned. There was a facetious letter today suggesting that the UK weather forecasters should be jailed for forecasting a heat wave this week that didn't turn up. Let’s hope the sentences are overturned on appeal – and on some reasonable understanding of risk.

More about risk later but I thought I’d try to find some earthquake-related engineering so I Googled earthquake-resistant buildings, expecting to find some Japanese and US material (OK, the former probably wouldn't appear in western typeface!) but I was surprised to find a British engineering company that includes these in their product range. Have a look at their web site here and a detailed description of ’quakes and buildings here.

Reid Steel also have a marine division which makes, amongst other things, the Starfish – a super little rowing dinghy for children.

Engineering – and earthquakes

Silence for over a month – I’ve been catching up after a couple of trips so here we go again. There’s been some discussion recently about the need and opportunities for engineering projects in the UK. I say ‘some discussion’ because part of the problem is that engineering has a very low profile here.  I was going to research some exciting, interesting, leading-edge British engineering achievements or plans (not HS2!) and then came the news about the Italian earthquake convictions. While not strictly an engineering story, I think it epitomises the lack of understanding by one part of the establishment of another. Do we have another “two cultures” here?

The chance – probability – of an earthquake is a statistical thing. Have a look at the work done in California – another quake region – on the Southern California Earthquake Center web site here. To quote one section: “According to the new forecast, California has a 99.7% chance of having a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake during the next 30 years (see Figure 1). The likelihood of an even more powerful quake of magnitude 7.5 or greater in the next 30 years is 46%. Such a quake is more likely to occur in the southern half of the state (37% chance in 30 years) than in the northern half (15% chance in 30 years)” Now, this forecast was made in 2007 so what’s the chance of an earthquake there tomorrow?

While a little simplistic for the chance of an earthquake, one of the basic statistical models is the normal distribution. This is the distribution of probabilities around an average. Lots of things follow such a distribution – heights of a group of people, number of items in supermarket trolleys, in fact anything that is ‘normal’ The average is the most likely but some measurements will vary from the average – the further away, the fewer there are. The Standard Deviation of the distribution measures how spread out are the figures: in a normal distribution 68% of measurements will be within one standard deviation either side of the average. Go to two standard deviations and 95% are within this and at three, 99.7%. Standard Deviation is abbreviated to the Greek letter sigma (r) There’s a wonderful explanation of Standard Deviation on the Maths is fun web site here. There’s also a great model on the web which generates a normal distribution in front of your eyes. I left it running while drafting this entry:

If you want a really full explanation of Standard Deviation, have a look at the Wikipedia entry, but it dies get very dense.

Who was it who said “Lies, damned lies and statistics”?

A few days in France - Caudebec-en-Caux

We’re just back from a short trip to France: short but full of fascinating sights. We stayed for the first two days at Caudebec-en-Caux which is on the Seine between Rouen and Le Havre. The Seine is very wide here and as well as river cruise boats there was a fair amount of commercial traffic – including the cruise ship “Black Watch” which sailed downstream one afternoon. Rather surprisingly there were no small pleasure boats.

Looking upstream from Caudebec: the bridge is the Pont de Brotonne

The architecture of much of the town was the usual exotic style. The Manoir de Rétival, which overlooks the town, is actually a restaurant. Its web site claims it’s not an hotel, rather “Le séjour se déroule dans une atmosphère familial” (translated on the web as “A private atmosphere makes your experience of sojourn stand out.”) Very French.

The Manoir de Rétival

Dedication of new kneelers at Little Hampden Church

Bishop Alan dedicated some wonderful new altar kneelers at Little Hampden Church at a service of Evensong this evening. The Service was lead by Rev Caroline Bailey and was followed by drinks and nibbles.

The old kneelers were falling apart. Jeanette Green designed the new kneelers, using the colours in the windows as inspiration. Some of the Little Hampden congregation  ladies started to make the kneelers but they were not experienced enough so Jeanette, together with Kathy Featherstone and Lois Shoesmith completed them. Tonight’s service was a celebration of their work; unfortunately Kathy and Lois couldn’t attend but Jeanette was presented with flowers and a special gift.

Harvest at Little Hampden

Wonderful sights in the field next to us tonight:

Inspire a Generation

I’ve been rather surprised that all the talk following the Olympics on the “Inspire a Generation” theme has been about sport. While the sporting message is significant, I think the Inspire... idea has a much wider meaning. What we saw with the Olympics was people who have set their sights high, have worked very hard for four, eight or even more years, and have achieved their best. Tom Daley's celebration after 'only' winning a bronze epitomised this. 

The other significant legacy relates to the volunteers – the Games Makers. They received very positive publicity and have obviously made a big difference to the success of the games. Again, there’s inspiration in this. Not that we don’t all volunteer a lot at the moment – but how visible is our volunteering? How well managed? And I’m sure there are people who are inspired by the success of the Games Makers to want to have a go at something themselves.

So, inspired by these aspects of the games, I’ve started thinking about some ideas to build on these ideas. The first is to put some focus on volunteering. Should we try to identify local volunteers in some way? Something like ‘Missenden Makers’? And what about a simple badge or uniform? Nothing as elaborate as the games uniform but something to make them stand out. And what about training and management? The Olympic volunteers were clearly managed very well. We typically give a sigh of relief that someone has stepped up to a role and let them get on with it!

Then there’s the the whole achieving game. I do lots with youngsters and will certainly be using the model of the athletes to prompt them into positive action. The autumn school term will be starting soon and with it another year of Young Enterprise. This is a great opportunity to build on the Olympics achievements and get the students to think about what they want to achieve and work hard to succeed. I wonder if I could get Tom Daley along to talk to them.

After suspension bridges – what about Cable-Stayed bridges

Cable-stayed bridges seem to be taking over from suspension bridges so after discussing at Hungerford and Clifton, I thought I’d investigate this type. Although many have been built in the last 50 years or so, the design has been around for much longer. Some notable early bridges are either cable-stayed or a combination of suspension and cable-stayed:  the Victoria Bridge, Bath (1836) the Albert Bridge across the Thames (1872) and the Brooklyn Bridge in New York (1883)



Victoria Bridge and Albert Bridge

 The first modern cable-stayed bridge is usually quoted as the Strömsund Bridge in Sweden, built in 1955.

Strömsund Bridge

Since that date may have been built: the Queen Elizabeth II bridge which takes the M25 over the Thames and the Second Severn Crossing are two in the UK.

Second Severn Crossing

Probably the most famous is the Millau Bridge in France, designed by the French structural engineer Michel Virlogeux and British architect Norman Foster, it is the tallest bridge in the world. It also has the highest structure in France – one of the piers at 343M is taller than the Eiffel Tower (323M). The Millau has 7 piers and 8 spans. This, I believe, makes it the longest cable-stayed span in the world. Interestingly Wikipedia, in it’s list of longest cable-stayed bridges, doesn’t include the Millau because the others have longer approach bridges which are not cable-stayed.

Millau Bridge

The main difference between suspension and cable-stayed bridges is that in the latter, much of the weight of the bridge is taken by the cables to the anchorages which need to be substantial. In cable-stayed, the weight is taken to the piers. Also multiple-span suspension bridges are not possible.

Another recycled construction – Hungerford Bridge and the Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol

Another ‘green’ construction , but much older than the Olympic stadium is the Hnngerfrod Bridge across the Thames from Charing Cross to the South Bank near the Festival Hall. The original bridge was built by Isombard Kingdom Brunel in 1845. It was a suspension bridge linking the north bank of the Thames with the Hungerford Market – hence the name. 

When the railway company extended their track to the new Charing Cross station in 1859, they replaced the suspension bridge with a wrought iron gifder bridge designed by John Hawksmoor. At this stage, the suspension links were reused for the Clifton Suspension Bridge which still spans the Clifton Gorge in Bristol. 

We rather take for granted today engineering standards but in Brunel’s day, they didn’t have any standard components. Brunel had to calculate the size and strength of the links needed for his design. All the links were individually cast on site and tested to ensure they were strong enough to support the calculated weights. That they are still in use today supporting the Clifton bridge is a tribute to Brunel’s engineering skill.

The Olympics are nearly here – I’ve had a look at the stadium design

While the stadium doesn’t have the same iconic look as the Beijing “Bird’s Nest” stadium, it has a number of interesting features. One is that it is a very green building – I haven’t been able to find out how green, but one reference says “Most, if not all, of the structure was made with recycled materials like rejected plastic crates and excess concrete from other areas of the park”

The architect Peter Cook has also designed the stadium so that after the games the top sections can be removed, reducing the capacity from 80,000 to 25,000. The stadium has been shortlisted today for the Stirling Prize – the RIBA’s annual architecture prize. The full shortlist can be seen at http://ribastirlingprize.architecture.com/. The Guardian’s comments are at http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jul/22/riba-stirling-prize-shortlist-2012-revealed


More info about the stadium:


http://populous.com/project/london-2012/

http://www.artlog.com/2012/34-olympic-architecture-beijing-vs-london#.UAx1nGGe4oI

http://www.olympicgames2012london.org/londonolympicstadiumuniquedesign.html

http://www.designcruzer.com/london-olympics-stadium-olympics-games-2012/

A good day

A good day for two reasons. Firstly an important day for physics: CERN has confirmed with nearly 100% certainty that the Higgs Boson exists. I won’t try to explain - or understand it but it is a very significant confirmation of the explanation of matter. It’s existence was forecast in 1964: earlier models couldn’t explain mass (weight to us) until this particle was added to the models. The whole elementary particle and quantum mechanics world is fascinating but difficult to take in: electrons - whose existence is fundamental to our modern high-tech world - don’t exist as ‘things’ in the sense that we understand, rather they have a probability that places them over a range of locations with a most likely location. When in university, I played with tunnel diodes - devices that have negative electrical resistance which can be explained by this probability theory. Light normally behaves as waves but can also exhibit characteristics of particles - photons. Proving the existence of these elementary particles is a complex game: they only exist for fractions of a second and need complex mechanisms to detect their existence. 


The second ‘good day’ reason was a Young Enterprise event at the Cooper School, Bicester. Sell for Success is a day of business games to give students an intensive introduction to enterprise and business skills. Groups of year 11 (5th form in old currency) students have to design, market and finance a game console. We had five groups of about a dozen each today from a range of Oxford schools. I played the role of Supplier of the consoles - manufactured in India. Each company has to decide on the spec for the console, sort out financing (another adviser plays bank manager) and market the device once they’ve decided on all the options. They don’t make a real console, of course, but do make a mock-up and have to make a presentation to the judges and the rest of the students. 

It’s a high-pressure day, particularly as most of the groups come together for the first time so they have to build themselves into a team very rapidly before negotiating with bank manager and me. They all did exceptionally well, gelling as teams very rapidly and having great fun. I’m sure they have started to develop a range of skills that they will find very useful whatever career they chose. One of the teachers reported that several had said that based on their experience of the day, they want to take part in the YE Company Programme during the next academic year. This involves groups of students forming their own companies and developing and selling products or services: no business games, this is for real.


Apart from the fun of the day, all the students today were great. Youngsters get such a bad press these days but everyone I saw today was well behaved, courteous and mature. Not the image one sees in the press.


Altogether a great day!

I’m not sure what to call this – British science, engineering?

And now for something different: after the Lent poetry and the Jubilee, I’ve been looking for a theme. Richard Morrison in The Times yesterday has triggered something: his comment is headed “We do nostalgia well, but the future needs much more attention.”  Prompted by the nostalgia of the Thames Pageant, he argues that we need to make more of our design skills – “The curse of British Design over the past century has not been a lack of talent, but lack of the commercial nous to turn great drawing-board ideas into objects that will transform the lives of millions”


I half agree with this sentiment: we are not the best at turning our ideas into big commercial successes but we are also not good at owning up to what we are doing. So I’m going to try to find British scientific and engineering successes. I was hoping to quote more from Richard’s article but the Times website is misbehaving. (By the way, the web was invented by the British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee.)


Let’s start with ARM microchips: did you know that most (90 to 95%) mobile phones are powered by chips designed and licensed by the Cambridge company ARM? They started life designing the BBC Micro (remember that?) and went on to design RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) microchips. So the iPhone, the Samsung Galaxy (and, incidentally, the iPad) are powered by chips designed in the UK. If you really want to find out about RISC and ARM look them up on Wikipedia.

The Jubilee at Gt Missenden

First pictures at www.missendenchurch.org.uk/jubilee/