#physics

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A light dusting of snow here in Heidelberg 🇩🇪this morning 🌨️, nothing like what our son is reporting from Groningen 🇳🇱☃️👍

But just enough to reveal some nice physics at work in the melting patterns on the stone steps during Tigger’s garden walk 😸

There’s presumably a temperature gradient across them, warmer round the edges due to conduction to the thermal mass of the ground & colder towards the centre & edge due to radiative coupling to the night sky ❄️🥵🥶

Some red stone steps leading down a slope in our garden, with a lavender bush and other plants surrounding. The garden and steps have a light dusting of snow and the snow has melted into rough semi-circular patterns on the steps, gone around the edges connected directly to the ground. Our cat Tigger is down on the last step visible in the picture.

English mathematician and physicist Peter Barlow was born in 1776.

In 1833, Barlow built an achromatic doublet lens of joined flint glass and crown glass. A derivative of this design, named a Barlow lens, is widely used in modern astronomy and photography as an optical element to increase both achromatism and magnification. He contributed to Rees's Cyclopædia articles on Algebra, Analysis, Geometry and Strength of Materials.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Barlow_(mathematician)

Portrait of Peter Barlow (1776 – 1862) By Samuel Cousins In the portrait, Barlow is depicted as an elderly man with a serious, thoughtful expression. His hair is thinning, and he has sideburns, both common features of men from that era. He is dressed in formal attire, likely a dark suit with a high-collared white shirt, symbolizing his scholarly status. The background is subtle and dark, with the lighting focused on Barlow’s face, giving the image a sense of depth and emphasizing his intellect.