A magnetic day

6.24pm. It's been a busy day. In the morning, my lab partner Tim and I ended up racing to finish off the speed of sound lab. There was a deceptive amount of work towards the end, measuring atomic weights of various component gasses in the atmosphere, using various constants etc. It was a good lab.

After morning coffee we started on the magnetic fields lab. The lab was taken by David Keen and Andy (who appears to be either Greek-Cypriot or Middle Eastern, not entirely sure which). I was working with Neil Radford, who turns out to be a policeman working for Vice in Nottinghamshire.

We worked hard and well together, looking at the effect of varying current, coil radius and numbers of turns on magnetic flux. That took us in no time to lunch.

After lunch, we were back in the lab, varying the distance of the coil from the magnetometer, and we are almost at the point where we can start on the Helmholtz configuration. We have the entire morning to complete this, but as it's the end of course party tonight at Collingwood, I think Andy is trying to drive it along at a pace to allow people to work more slowly tomorrow.

Just had dinner with Richard, and a guy called Darren, who I've spotted but not chatted with before. He has pale blue eyes, a thin goatee, and works on an off-shore installation, something to do with geophysical engineering.

Just back in my room now, uploading photos and audio files. I don't have the luxury of time tonight; at 7.15pm it's the lecture on how to write up the TMA. I cannot afford to miss this one, especially having failed to make the grade last year.

After that it's over to Collingwood. I do not plan to have a late night, especially as I have to be up early tomorrow to pack, and then to check out of the room before 9am. Busy busy busy.