Freddie Pacey blogs about the Margaret Beaufort archaeological dig in Collyweston.

Margaret Beaufort: Archaeological dig  In early July there was an archaeological dig in Collyweston with the intention of finding a lost royal palace that belonged to Margaret Beaufort – the grandmother of Henry VIII. The dig lasted over multiple weekends, I attended the first Saturday of the dig for five hours in the pouring rain. […]

Freddie Pacey separates fact from fiction in his analysis of 300.

300: Fact and Fiction 300 was directed by Zack Snyder who adapted the story from Frank Miller’s graphic novel. It was released in 2007 and outshone its budget at the box-office by around four times the amount, garnering an impressive 456.1 million dollars. The film depicts the events leading up to and including the battle […]

Freddie Pacey blogs about the characters and ideologies within ‘Legally Blonde’

The Characters and Ideologies within “Legally Blonde” Legally Blonde is a film made in 2001, directed by Robert Luketic and starring Reese Witherspoon. It was adapted into a musical and performed in 2007, introducing a multitude of impressively memorable songs. Both the theatrical and film version focus around Elle Woods; a young chairwoman of the […]

Zak Ellis asks if our democracy is in danger?

Is our democracy in danger? On the 28thAugust 2019 PM Boris Johnson announced his plans to suspend parliament with his plans of ‘Prorogation’. This is effectively when the Prime Minister advises the Queen to shut down parliament for a set amount of time. Parliament will be suspended from the 13thof September and re-opened on the […]

James Everitt explains Planck’s constant

How does Planck’s constant effect our everyday lives and how would things change if it had a different value? Planck’s constant is named after the German physicist Max Planck, who devised the idea for atoms to only be able to vibrate at set frequencies (quantised values). This is often credited as the first theory of […]

James Everitt blogs on UV/Visible Spectroscopy

UV/Visible spectroscopy relies on the interaction of molecules with electromagnetic radiation mainly in the ultra-violet and visible parts of the spectrum. This electromagnetic radiation according to quantum theory acts as both a particle and wave, known as wave-particle duality, it is this particle nature that allows electromagnetic radiation to interact with electrons and allow us […]

James Everitt blogs on electron movements behind UV/Visible spectroscopy

The electron movements behind UV/Visible spectroscopy by James Everitt. Electrons reside in orbitals around an atom. The most basic of these are the s and p orbital. Every electron shell in an atom contains one spherical shaped s-orbital which when it combines with another to form a bond forms what is known as a σ-bond […]

Thomas Watson blogs on Cherenkov Radiation

When a plane goes into super-sonic speeds a sonic boom is heard. The sound/pressure waves produced by the aircraft lag behind it (Fig 1.1), and as the waves are not faster than the super-sonic plane. The waves interfere with each other constructively, creating a large pressure wave which we hear as a distinctive boom. The […]