Seismology & Nuclear Detection

Tags

climate, earthquake, geology, nuclear, science, siesmology, test

Real-time Earthquake Map courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.

Using the US Geological Survey to track earthquakes, I found 3 epicentres of close proximity of one another within 7 years. This was in a small area inside North Korea. I would not assume this to be an earthquake of any kind. But rather, something completely artificial. So with the data included below this post, I presumed that this could only be the result of several systematic underground nuclear tests. But I will only focus on the largest and most recent nuclear explosion.

Physics, Relativity, and my 14 year old self.

Dear Reader,

I found an old forum post, from when I was 14 years old. In hindsight, it was very flawed, ignorant, and hasty… but hey. I was just curious. I’ve always been like this.

Combinatory Mathematics

RE: Euro 2013 Group C Permutations

Dear Reader,

I’ve been doing some maths, and I’ve stagnated  myself into an unfavourable position. To any mathematicians out there, I’m requesting assistance!

I have a finite set, S, where Ew=England Win, El=England Loss, Ed=England Draw, Sw=Spain Win, Sl=Spain loss, and Sd=Spain draw.

S:{Ew,Sw,El,Sw,Ed,Sw,Ew,Sl,El,Sl,Ed,Sl,Ew,Sd,Ew,Sd,Ed,Sd}

Calculating my line of sight

Dear reader,

I was on top of London. Literally.

The Shard is known as the tallest building in the European Union, and I climbed it! And I didn’t just half-ass it. I went all the way to the 72nd floor, which just so happens to be the top floor. But what surprised me the most was the sheer speed of the lifts. They seem to travel extremely fast, scaling 33 floors within 3 seconds. But needless to say, this was not the highlight of the visit.

The view was phenomenal. And I couldn’t help to think, how so few have seen London in this unique vantage point. This was my home town. The foggy city on the river.

A little side note: For those who appreciate mathematics, I was curious to know how much ground my eyes were covering at that height before the horizon caught up with the curvature of the Earth. So I used this formula:

distance (km) is proportional to 3.57 multiplied by the square root of height (m)

As I stood at the 72nd floor, it was simple to find out h as the 72nd floor stands at 244.3 m. Ignoring atmospheric refraction, the distance (d) turns out to be 55.8 km. That is a lot of land covered! To see this visually, I drew up a radius from where the Shard is situated in Southwark.

Ignoring hills and atmospheric refraction, that’s an area of 9781.8 km. That is incredible, isn’t it? If The Shard was situated near Dover, you would be able to see the France from Britain. Yes, you read correctly. The Straight of Calais is 48.3 km, meaning, if The Shard was placed around the docks of Dover, you’ll see approximately 7.5 km of France. Which is quite a lot, considering that you are looking at France whilst still in the UK.

SCIENCE!

So there you have it, dearest reader. I leave you with a final goodbye, with the sun setting down and glistening on Westminster.

Till next time.

A Londoner.

Ps. I may wish to try this sometime.

My Experience Volunteering For TEDMEDLive Imperial College

Fresh from the excitement of last year’s incredibly successful TEDx event, those great TED vibes return to Imperial College once more, this time bringing with them TEDMEDLive.

TEDMED is a community of the brightest minds interested in overcoming the world’s most pressing medical and health challenges. Once a year they congregate in Washington, DC to bring to bear the latest thinking and research into a diverse range of fields surrounding the human condition, but don’t be tricked into thinking TEDMED is of interest only to medics.

The four day conferences are extremely multidisciplinary, combining talks and presentations with performances from artists, poets and musicians. Highlights from past TEDMED conferences include David Blaine telling a room full of medical professionals how he continually defied the advice of doctors in his pursuit to break the record for holding one’s breath under water, and illusionist Eric Mead demonstrating the complex power of the placebo with nothing but a piece of cutlery. These talks alone demonstrate the amazing accessibility to medical insight and innovation a TEDMED event affords its audience.

Neurotrauma at the BNA NeuroFest 2013

 

I may not be a MD (or a Neurosurgeon per se), but I do know how to somewhat treat a dummy patient with subdural hematoma. Thanks Professor Kneebone.

 

Investigating Altruism

About three years ago, I started to research on human altruism under the guidance of the psychology department at my college. I must have been 18 or 19 at the time.

The introduction reads:

Does altruism exist? Or is it just a myth amongst humans? It’s still a shock that still to this day there is no general consensus within psychologist on the existence of altruism. I plan to challenge certain ideas, such as the Darwinian idea of Natural Selection and to draw scientific conclusions and discover new principals that would hopefully clear the cloud that has shrouded this topic for prospective researchers like me. Since there is much confusion and a flux in the definition, this write up will therefore include a wide variety of fields such as mathematics, economics, anthropology, sociology, biology and psychology in the hope to discover the true meaning of Altruism. Hopefully, this will help to understand and investigate the reasons for the science behind morality by creating lucidity in the field.

Under their discretion, I had produced a video of one session.

watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Xo0a7P8McDE#!

 

My old blog: http://psyblog.weebly.com/current-research.html

FreeSurfer

I finally got FreeSurfer up and running. Bert is looking alive and healthy.

Demonstrating EEG technology to the public

Funding Science

I recieved the gold-master thesis from Paul to review (this isn’t the final release, but it’s pretty much all done) and look! My name is in the acknowledgements section.

Analysis and Design of Telerobots, A Postphenomonological Study. By Paul Strohmeier
Supervised by Ike Kamphof
University College Maastricht, January 2013