Following my retirement, we have closed our company for new business.

Please do not hesitate to contact me directly, our email portal remains open and I would be delighted to hear from you and provide ongoing support or advice.

Richard Thomson

support@rta-instruments.com

Companies represented up to the end of December 2023. Please now contact them directly.

k-Space Associates, Inc.
Phone: +1 (734) 426-7977
requestinfo@k-space.com
https://www.k-space.com

STAIB INSTRUMENTS GmbH
Phone: +49 8761 76 24 0
sales@staibinstruments.com
https://www.staibinstruments.com/

Tuesday 24 December 2013

An alternative Season's Greetings

... and for readers who are less interested in music a snip from a play by a contemporary British playwright. We advise that you don't watch this whilst at work.

Monday 23 December 2013

Season's Greetings

Celebrating the lives of three 20th Century British composers. John Tavener (28 January 1944 – 12 November 2013) The Lamb A four-part choral setting of William Blake's poem, sung here by King's College Choir, Cambridge. Benjamin Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) This little babe from A Ceremony of Carols is sung here by Schola Cantorum Leipzig. John Rutter is well known for his scrunchy harmonies A Gaelic Blessing is here sung by The Cambridge Singers, directed by the composer. And with our best wishes for 2014.

Friday 20 December 2013

Wednesday 18 December 2013

Friday 13 December 2013

In Brief

Scientists have suggested 20 concepts that should be part of the education of civil servants, politicians and others. Caveat Tweeter; software uses Twitter profiles to determine psychological traits. Introducing stanene; graphene with speed?

Wednesday 11 December 2013

iHear?

Apparently Denmark, population fewer than 6 million, supplies over half the world’s hearing aids. Copenhagen based GN has worked with Apple Inc. to develop a blue tooth device aimed at taking the stigma out of wearing a hearing aid. They have produced a device that when installed in the ear allows users to directly stream voice and music from their iPhone. As Hamlet Prince of Denmark said, give everyman thy ear but few thy voice. Not cheap but with over 360 million people having some form of hearing impairment it will be interesting to see if this type of product is to be or not to be.

Monday 9 December 2013

X-ray source

A group at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have reported their work on quasi-monoenergetic and tuneable X-rays from a laser-driven Compton light source. The aim being to produce synchrotron like X-rays for advanced medical imaging applications without the requirement to have a synchrotron facility.

Thursday 5 December 2013

Further fluid dynamics

Last month we had whistling kettles, this month we have fluid dynamics giving new insights into the science behind foaming beer bottles. The experimental observations involve tapping the top of a newly opened beer bottle and then standing back as the suds foam out onto the floor. Apparently the sudden tap on the bottle’s mouth initiates compression and expansion waves causing bubbles to appear and quickly collapse. The cavitation-induced break-up of the larger bubbles creates clouds of very small "daughter bubbles," which grow and expand much faster than the larger mother-bubbles from which they split. The rapid expansion of these daughter bubbles gives the foam buoyancy.

Tuesday 3 December 2013

There’s gold in them thar leaves

Eucalyptus trees in the Kalgoorlie region of Western Australia are drawing up gold particles from the earth via their root system and depositing it in their leaves and branches.

Monday 2 December 2013