The beginnings of geography teaching and research in the University of Glasgow: the impact of J.W. Gregory

J.W. Gregory arrived in Glasgow from Melbourne in 1904 to take up the post of foundation Professor of Geology in the University of Glasgow. Soon after his arrival in Glasgow he began to push for the setting up of teaching in Geography in Glasgow, which came to pass in 1909 with the appointment of a Lecturer in Geography. This lecturer was based in the Department of Geology in the University's East Quad. Gregory's active promotion of Geography in the University was matched by his extensive writing in the area, in textbooks, journal articles and popular books. His prodigious output across a wide range of subject areas is variably accepted today, with much of his geomorphological work being judged as misguided to varying degrees. His 'social science' publications - in the areas of race, migration, colonisation and economic development of Africa and Australia - espouse a viewpoint that is unacceptable in the twenty-first century. Nonetheless, that viewpoint sits squarely within the social and economic traditions of Gregory's era, and he was clearly a key 'Establishment' figure in natural and social sciences research in the first half of the twentieth century. The establishment of Geography in the University of Glasgow remains enduring testimony of J.W. Gregory's energy, dedication and foresight

Rotating launch device for a remotely piloted aircraft

A method and apparatus for launching a remotely piloted aircraft is disclosed, wherein the aircraft is revolved about a fixed pivot point until a predetermined speed is reached whereupon the vehicle is released from the launching apparatus. The vehicle is attached to one end of a rotatable arm, the imbalance on the arm being counteracted by a counter weight attached to the opposite end. The counter weight is released from the arm at the same time as the aircraft so as to avoid structural damage to the apparatus caused by rotation in the unbalanced condition. The arm is oriented such that it rotates in a plane inclined obliquely to the local gravitational field of the launch site

Shape Preserving Spline Interpolation

A rational spline solution to the problem of shape preserving interpolation is discussed. The rational spline is represented in terms of first derivative values at the knots and provides an alternative to the spline-under-tension. The idea of making the shape control parameters dependent on the first derivative unknowns is then explored. The monotonic or convex shape of the interpolation data can then be preserved automatically through the solution of the resulting non-linear consistency equations of the spline

Existence of CMC Cauchy surfaces and spacetime splitting

In this paper, we review results on the existence (and nonexistence) of constant mean curvature spacelike hypersurfaces in the cosmological setting, and discuss the connection to the spacetime splittng problem. It is a pleasure to dedicate this paper to Robert Bartnik, who has made fundamental contributions to this area.Comment: 16 page

Maximum Principles for Null Hypersurfaces and Null Splitting Theorems

A maximum principle for C^0 null hypersurfaces is obtained and used to derive a splitting theorem for spacetimes which contain null lines. As a consequence of this null splitting theorem, it is proved that an asymptotically simple vacuum (Ricci flat) spacetime which contains a null line is isometric to Minkowski space.Comment: 26 pages, latex2

Rigidity of outermost MOTS - the initial data version

In [5], a rigidity result was obtained for outermost marginally outer trapped surfaces (MOTSs) that do not admit metrics of positive scalar curvature. This allowed one to treat the "borderline case" in the author's work with R. Schoen concerning the topology of higher dimensional black holes [8]. The proof of this rigidity result involved bending the initial data manifold in the vicinity of the MOTS within the ambient spacetime. In this note we show how to circumvent this step, and thereby obtain a pure initial data version of this rigidity result and its consequence concerning the topology of black holes.Comment: 8 pages; v2: minor changes; version to appear in GR

Combustion chamber Patent

Regenerative cooling system for rocket combustion chamber using coolant tubes in convergent-divergent nozzl