Dr. Christopher Bird

News

January 22, 2014 - More amazing news from the astronomy community this morning - a new supernova has just been discovered. Normally this would be a non-issue, since they are discovered constantly at big observatories, however this one is in the M82 galaxy which is in our cosmic neighbourhood. That means that this supernova should be visible to backyard astronomers using binoculars, and will allow the professional scientists to gather huge quantities of data which will help to probe numerous models of new physics (including several I worked on as a graduate student). This should be great viewing for those with clear skies, and will provide years of data for the physics community to analyze.

January 20, 2014 - Good news from the astrophysics/astronomy community this morning - the Rosetta probe has woken up after its long hibernation and is ready to start work again!

January 15, 2014 - For those who are interested in the actual science and chemistry behind common food items, the wonderful Food Science course at McGill is now available for free online. Students can register here. (The website edx.com offers many other great courses from major universities, and all for free)

January 7, 2014 - I just booted up my Raspberry Pi for the first time - this could be the start of a beautiful friendship!

January 1, 2014 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!! May you all have a happy and prosperous 2014, and may we all meet again next year in joyous celebrations!

December 25, 2013 - MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

December 24, 2013 - The decorations are up, the gifts are bought and wrapped, and we have likely had as much snow as we will receive. Time to relax and enjoy the holidays!

December 6, 2013 - The electricity to my office is really fluctuating this afternoon, and wreaking havoc upon my equipment. And so unfortunately I won't be able to contact anyone for online meetings or get any work done for the rest of the day. My apologies to those affected.

December 4, 2013 - The rumors are true - it has actually snowed in my hometown of Victoria, BC! If it builds up I will post photos later. It is such a rare occurrence in December, and dare we hope for a genuine white Christmas?

November 28, 2013 - Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends, followers, and colleagues. Even if you are not celebrating, it is always good to take time to remember everything we have to be thankful for.

November 26, 2013 - I have had a few requests already for final exam tutoring. Unfortunately I am going to be busy with a couple of other projects that I am involved with, and will not have time for tutoring sessions this year. I do apologize for not letting everyone know earlier, but the schedule for one of these projects wasn't finalized until today.

November 23, 2013 - My newest book "Touring The Universe: A Modern Guide To Astrophysics & Cosmology" is now available from the published for direct sales. It is a little more advanced than most of my articles, but should still be quite accessible to the average interested science student. Copies may be purchased here.

November 21, 2013 - A quick reminder that this weekend should be decent viewing of comet ISON. It will appear just before dawn, and can be seen between the planets Saturn and Mercury. Later next week it will pass the Sun, and if it survives that encounter should be viewable again next week as begins its journey out again.

November 20, 2013 - I just learned that Wolfram, the company behind Mathematica and other scientific software, has announced that they will be including free copies of Mathematica and of the Wolfram Programming Language on all Raspberry Pi computers. The Wolfram language in particular has been developed over the past 25 years as a high level language for symbolic computing, and now includes built-in methods for interfacing with the Raspberry Pi camera and GPIO connections. That is really great news, and is going to make these devices even more valuable.

November 13, 2013 - There is a new lecture from the SpaceVision2013 posted on Youtube (view it here) in which Dr. Harold White from NASA is claiming to have found a more technologically plausible version of the Alcubierre warp drive. For those who do not remember this model, it is a solution of Einstein's equation of general relativity which would allow for faster-than-light travel, but at the cost of high energies and exotic particles. White is claiming to have a new, tamer version of it that could be built within the century. I think there is still a lot of work to do even with his model, but it is an interesting step forward towards true space travel.

November 11, 2013 - Rememberance Day. I hope everyone in the world (or at least the commonwealth) will take a little time out of their days today to remember all the men and women who have sacrificed so much in the interest of both defence of others and peacekeeping.