Categories: uncategorized
Date: 12 May 2004 18:31:07
Here's another fascinating factoid from "A Short History of Nearly Everything", which is turning into great bedtime reading, I really recommend it. From the chapter on plate tectonics and stuff like that, "[2 scientists in the 1950s] studied the ancient magnetic patterns frozen in British rocks and were startled, to say the very least, to find them indicating that at some time in the distant past Britain had spun on its axis and travelled some distance to the north, as if it had somehow come loose from its moorings". So, if I'm not mistaken, if I were born at that point in the very distant past, then
(a) I'd probably be a bit smelly by now,
(b) I'd be living in the Canary Islands, and
(c) I'd be a northerner. How about that?
Today I had a work-related study day (on Child Safety Week) which was actually, unlike many work-related study days, really rather good. And not just because they laid on a fantastic lunch and finished an hour and a half early and let us go home. Although those were the main reasons.
I also had an email today from one of the UpNorth University supervisors, who described my research proposal as "fascinating" and gave me lots of ideas about how to refine my proposal and tons and tons of reading to do to get myself up to scratch. Which I'm really really chuffed about. Although I'm also slightly freaked out by the thought that proper academics seem to be taking me seriously.