A1 4 What if Mars was made of Mars Bars?

We investigate the outcomes of a scenario that the planet Mars has suddenly changed its composition and become a giant spherical mars bar of the same volume as planet Mars. We find that both the mass and the gravitational field strength would decrease by 75%, and the escape velocity would reduce by 50%. It would also last as a food source for around 100 billion years

A1 8 Boiling Water With a Hair Dryer

We investigate if it would be possible to boil water from room temperature with a hair dryer, and the time taken to do this. We also explore the energy transfers associated with this. We conclude that it is possible to do this, taking a time of 235 seconds

A1 5 Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man

In this paper, we take the iconic train scene from Spider-Man 2(2004), where Spider-Man slowsdown a train that’s about to fall off the track by using his web, saving everyone inside. We usethis to estimate that the web undergoes a tensile stress of 2.9×10^8 N m^-2 and has a Young’smodulus of 6.2×10^7 N m^-2

A1 6 How many bombs can the ocean hold?

Nuclear bombs, such as hydrogen bombs, are extremely dangerous and are a threat to humanity. We consider a situation where hydrogen bombs explode, and all the water in the ocean absorbs the energy. We calculate that at least 8.6 × 1011 hydrogen bombs would be needed to vaporise all of the water in the ocean at once

A1 3 The Moving Earth

Supernova explosions happen all over the Universe. We consider an unlikely situation where our Sun gains mass and undergoes a supernova explosion. We estimate that if the Sun explodes at 8 solar masses, the momentum of the explosion causes the Earth to move away at a velocity of 14 km s-1

A1 7 The Flying Umbrella

The umbrella is a commonly used tool to avoid rain. However, in media, they are often used to slow descent. We consider a situation where a person is on top of a very tall tower, and as there is a fire, he has to jump off the tower. We calculate that the umbrella must have a diameter of at least 4 m to survive with a safe landing velocity of 5 m s-1

A deconvolution map-making method for experiments with circular scanning strategies

Aims. To investigate the performance of a deconvolution map-making algorithm for an experiment with a circular scanning strategy, specifically in this case for the analysis of Planck data, and to quantify the effects of making maps using simplified approximations to the true beams. Methods. We present an implementation of a map-making algorithm which allows the combined treatment of temperature and polarisation data, and removal of instrumental effects, such as detector time constants and finite sampling intervals, as well as the deconvolution of arbitrarily complex beams from the maps. This method may be applied to any experiment with a circular scanning-strategy. Results. Low-resolution experiments were used to demonstrate the ability of this method to remove the effects of arbitrary beams from the maps and to demonstrate the effects on the maps of ignoring beam asymmetries. Additionally, results are presented of an analysis of a realistic full-scale simulated data-set for the Planck LFI 30 GHz channel. Conclusions. Our method successfully removes the effects of the beams from the maps, and although it is computationally expensive, the analysis of the Planck LFI data should be feasible with this approach.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, accepte

Measurement of the Drell{Yan triple-differential cross-section in pp collisions at ps = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

PhDThis thesis presents the measurement and results of the Z= ! + �� Drell{Yan tripledi erential cross-section, using 20:24 fb��1of ATLAS data recorded in 2012 at a centre-of-mass energy of ps = 8TeV. The triple-differential cross-section is measured as a function of dimuon invariant mass, m , dimuon rapidity, y , and lepton decay angle in the Collins-Soper frame, cos . These dimensions provide sensitivity to the parton composition of the proton through the parton density functions, PDFs, and the weak e ective mixing angle, sin2 e : W , via the forward-backward asymmetry, AFB. The measurement is performed on and around the Z-boson's invariant mass peak, 46 20 GeV, and muon pseudo-rapidity j j 2:4. The results are unfolded from the detector level to the Born, bare and dressed levels, where a precision of < 0:6% is reported in the central bins. The data is combined with an electron channel measurement resulting in a combined result with reduced total uncertainty. The combined result is shown to constrain PDF uncertainties and achieve the most constrained sin2 e : W uncertainty yet reported at the LHC

A Study into the Effect of the Presence of Moisture at the Wheel/Rail Interface during Dew and Damp Conditions

Incidents involving low levels of adhesion between the wheel and rail are a recurrent issue in the rail industry. The problem has been mitigated using friction modifiers and traction enhancers, but a significant number of incidents still occur throughout the year. The following work looks at the environmental conditions that surround periods of low adhesion in order to provide an insight into why low adhesion events occur. Network Rail Autumn data, which provided details on the time and location of low adhesion incidents, was compared against weather data on a national and then local scale. Low adhesion incidents have often been attributed to contamination on the rail, such as organic leaf matter, but other incidents occur when no contamination is visible. The time, date and location of incidents were linked to local weather data to establish any specific weather conditions that could lead to these events. The effects of precipitation, temperature and humidity on the rail were analysed in order to further the understanding of low adhesion in the wheel-rail contact, which will lead to better methods of mitigating this problem