First delivery of the year

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One of the dubious joys of starting a project from scratch is that you have to order everything. Pens, pencils. Microscopes. Soldering irons. Infra-red cameras. Meteorite samples. A cubic metre of snow globes. You name it, we’ve filled in the purchase order form for it.

Which means the next joy is receiving exciting deliveries every day. A parade of cardboard passes through Think Lab, boxes which might contain retort stands. Or miniature plastic palm trees. Or meteorite samples. Or small pieces of black metal shipped from China that must, somehow, be camera gear but have taken so long to arrive we can’t entirely work out what they’re for.

Today’s exciting delivery was… telephone directories. Joe says he has a plan for them, but that’s all we’ve got out of him so far.

Anyway – happy new year, and if you’ve unused telephone directories lying around: watch this space. As the directories put it, it will be packed full of useful stuff.

 

Filming: Metalwork

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Ann Cairns, President of International Markets, Mastercard

Ann Cairns, President of International Markets, Mastercard

We’re collaborating with the North-East Chamber of Commerce to produce a series of careers case-study films. I’ll avoid saying too much about it (is it hush-hush? I’m not sure…), but to the left is our first interviewee and below right, our second.

Jacqui Miller of Miller Engineering, Cramlington.

Jacqui Miller of Miller Engineering, Cramlington

Yes, it’s all a little high-powered.

Filming Jacqui involved a trip up to her company’s factory in Cramlington, which was fantastic. Modern engineering only very rarely involves molten metal, which speaking as a photographer is rather disappointing. Welding and sparks and smoke and all the rest look amazing on camera, and it was a delight to get alarmingly close to a laser cutter whilst it was doing this:

laser cutting

So, coming soon: pretty pictures, illustrating insights from leading figures in STEM businesses, from and in the North-East.

Philae has landed!

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Philae’s descent to the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Image courtesy of esa.

Last night space history was made when the Philae probe successfully descended from Rosetta and landed on Comet 67P. The Think Physics team watched the scenes unfold from our own mission control: Think Lab. We would like to extend our congratulations to everyone involved in the landing and wish them every success during the rest of the mission. More information can be found by visiting the European Space Agency’s website here. You can also review the journey that Rosetta has made by using this mind-blowing interactive map.

This afternoon, we have a small celebration of our own – the official launch of the Think Physics project. Not quite as complicated as landing a probe on a comet 510,398,393 km away, but we’re having our own nail-biting moments!