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#oxford

mkwadee@diasp.eu
Khurram Wadee

After lunch yesterday, we went to the #HistoryOfScienceMuseum in #Oxford. It's not very big but contains some really fascinating exhibits. It is right next to the #SheldonianTheatre and well worth a visit.

Here are wooden models of the #FivePlatonicSolids.
Small platonic solids

This is a beautiful example of #HandWriting in a book. #Writing like this is certainly a lost art these days.
Handwritten book on astronomy

Here I am explaining to my spouse the similarities and differences between #Octants, #Sextants and #Quadrants.
Me explaining something to the camera user.

This wooden box contains some immaculate #brass #DrawingInstruments. Another rarity these days but I do remember learning how to use similar #instruments while studying at university.
A box of brass drawing instruments

A brass #sundial.
A brass sundial in a glass display

Without anything but manual #SurveyingEquipment, humans were able accurately to map out the entire globe. It's amazing what can be achieved when humanity works together. But also, this model is absolutely gorgeous.
A model globe approximately 40 cm in diameter

Not to be outdone, the #astronomers mapped the #sky and here it appears on a companion globe.
Astronomical globe plotting the position of the stars

No computers were around then but the ingenuity of humans to develop calculating instruments to allow them to crunch numbers meant the creation of some devices of stupendous cunning.
A slide rule and a cylinder used to conduct high-precision calculations

To this day, trainee pilots have to master the #CircularSlideRule in order to do calculations for various tasks. Before flying was ever developed, such #SlideRules were in common use.
Circular slide rule

This #camera is another fine example of hand-made instruments. The craft and skill of whoever made it is a marvel.
A wooden box camera

#MyWork #MyPhoto #CCBYSA #Android #Spring #UK #England

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mkwadee@diasp.eu
Khurram Wadee

Yesterday, we went on a day trip to #Oxford by #train. No other means of powered transport was used as we #cycled to and from our local #RailwayStation.

Here is the #countryside zooming past the train window.
Blurred image of trees

It was a nice day to be out and the city has its own distinctive #architecture, much dominated by the UniversityOfOxford.
A building of the University of Oxford

Some of the centre is a zero-emission zone or #ZEZ, aimed at curbing the use of polluting vehicles. Such vehicle owners need to pay to use roads in that area.
A street with a ZEZ sign

Here I am walking up a street with some nice buildings in the background.
Me walking up a quiet street

The view of a church from across some botanical gardens.
Church tower behind some gardens

The entrance to those gardens.
Entrance to botanical gardens

The #SheldonianTheatre. This is where the degree ceremonies take place.
The Sheldonian Theatre

Oxford #TownHall is in a similar style to other buildings in the city.
Oxford Town Hall

I'm not sure what this building is but I don't think it's part of the university.
A building in the centre of Oxford

#MyWork #MyPhoto #CCBYSA #Android #Spring #UK #England

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drnoam@diasp.org
Noam Bergman

Why is #antisemitism so rife in #UK #Universities?

There have been more reported incidents of antisemitism on British #university campuses in a month than there were in all of 2022. At #Oxford University, where I am an undergraduate, acts of hatred, misinformation and a lack of empathy when we are vulnerable have turned student spaces into places of hostility.

Our #Jewish Society president had the mezuzah (a protective Jewish prayer scroll) ripped from his door. At a freshers’ event, one Jewish friend told me that she was called a “coloniser” and “race traitor” (the latter by virtue of her non-European descent). I know male students who have removed their kippot (skullcaps) and others who have hidden their Stars of David. On Instagram, I saw students posting pictures of paragliders, celebrating Hamas’s massacre. I waited five long days for my university to condemn “appalling attacks by Hamas” and stress “that there is no place for antisemitism or hate of any faith at Oxford”. An Israeli student whose relatives were murdered at the Nova festival has returned home, telling me she felt safer there than on campus.

Beyond Oxford, Jewish students have experienced similar incidents of antisemitism. In Manchester, posters with the words “kill more Jews” and “Yids” have been displayed. On Instagram, a university Jewish society was sent the message: “Wherever you are in the world, we will take you out of your homes and perform a dance of victory and happiness over your bodies”; another was sent a threat, accompanied by a video of beheaded babies, reading: “You must be killed all of u till the last naziest of you” [sic]; a university rabbi received a direct message that said: “You massacred innocent Muslims, I hope you die too.”

...

The psychological toll is huge: I do not sleep well and cry often. There are friends and tutors who have acknowledged my pain and their empathy has overwhelmed me. When a friend messaged offering to take notes if I felt unable to attend lectures, my eyes filled with tears. So I know it is possible for people to react differently, to not be led by preconceived notions about this conflict that harbour racism or a binary idea of who is good or bad. I urge fellow students, instead, to see us as just that – fellow citizens whose distress and pain must be taken at face value and countered with kindness, compassion and conversation in which no party experiences fear.

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ramnath@nerdpol.ch
ramnath

River #Thames, ancient Tamesis or Tamesa, also called (in #Oxford, #England) #River #Isis, chief river of southern England. Rising in the Cotswold Hills, its basin covers an area of approximately 5,500 square miles (14,250 square km). The traditional source at Thames Head, which is dry for much of the year, is marked by a stone in a field 356 feet (108.5 metres) above sea level and 3 miles (5 km) southwest of the town of #Cirencester. Some think a tributary, the River Churn, has a better claim to being the source; it rises near the village of Seven Springs (700 feet [213 metres] above sea level), just south of #Cheltenham.

Physical features
River Thames

The Thames is some 205 miles (330 km) long, running 140 miles (226 km) from the source to the tidal waters limit—i.e., from Thames Head to Teddington Lock—and, as an estuary, a further 65 miles (104 km) from there to The Nore sandbank, which marks the transition from estuary to open sea. Its basin, which receives an annual average precipitation of 27 inches (688 mm), has a complex structure. In its upper course the river drains a broadly triangular area defined by the chalk escarpment of the Chiltern Hills and the Berkshire Downs to the east and south, the Cotswolds to the west, and the Northamptonshire uplands to the north. At Goring Gap it cuts through the chalk escarpment and then drains the land lying north of the dip slope of the North Downs. Its last great tributary, the River Medway, drains much of the low-lying Weald area of Kent and Sussex to the south of London.
https://www.britannica.com/place/River-Thames

River Thames | History, Map, & Facts

River Thames, chief river of southern England.

christophs@diaspora.glasswings.com
Christoph S

Sankt-Scholastika-Tag: Kleine Geschichte, als Oxford im Chaos versank - Spektrum der Wissenschaft

Weil der Wein angeblich nicht schmeckte, gingen im Jahr 1355 Studenten und Bürger von Oxford aufeinander los. In der Stadt brach die Hölle los, wie unsere Kolumnisten erzählen.

Krass!
#oxford #geschichte

https://www.spektrum.de/kolumne/sankt-scholastika-tag-kleine-geschichte-als-oxford-im-chaos-versank/2186400

Hemmer und Meßner erzählen: Kleine Geschichte über den Tag, als Oxford im Chaos versank

Unsere Geschichtskolumnisten erzählen über die blutigen Studentenunruhen im Oxford des 14. Jahrhunderts

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