Total Eclipse of the Moon

nasa total eclipse informationHow come there’s no song with this as the title? Sung by someone with a gravelly voice…. (Sorry, semi-obscure ’80’s music reference.)

Anyway, yes, there is one later tonight (more properly, early in the morning on Tuesday). For West Coasters, the interesting phase starts at about 1:50am, and it’ll last for well over three hours, going total at 2:52am and coming out of total at 4:22am. Please make the appropriate adjustment for other timezones.

This is good news for me, as I’ve got eight hour jet-lag from flying back from England […] Click to continue reading this post

Switching

Back in LA, and down at the USC campus. Good to be back! Click below for larger view.

campus overhead from google maps Well, it is the first day of the new academic year’s teaching cycle. I’m here in my office at 7:30am (the power of jet-lag) and somehow have to switch my mind back firmly onto teaching and other matters. It’s always tough to do this, since there are always lots of intensely interesting research issues that continue on my mind from the Summer, and I know that some of those will gradually begin to fade (if I am not careful) as my other duties take up so much of my day to day. My first class (part one of the upper level electromagnetism course) is at 10:00am, and I want to plan out the structure for the whole semester, and write a syllabus to hand out and discuss. As well as the first lecture, of course. I’ve not taught this part of the cycle before, and so I’ll have to be writing new lecture notes.

I want to try some new things this year. In particular, I’ve become increasingly concerned […] Click to continue reading this post