Unsustainability

Edmond Bryne and John Fitzpatrick of the University College Cork, Ireland, are of the opinion that the subject of sustainability should not just be relegated to certain one-off modules, but should be woven into the fabric of school curricula, and advise educators to act duly in their article, Chemical Engineering in an unsustainable world: Obligations and opportunities.

Popular posts from this blog

Getting a PhD: Reviewing your progress

T oday marks my 6th month as a PhD student yay (one-sixth of the journey). I absolutely want to complete my PhD in the allotted time and my Uni would like this to happen as well because good student completion rates are in the best interest of the university.  Since I’m required to hand in a 6-month progress report to my Faculty I thought I’d do a quick personal progress review as well. I’ve assessed myself based on Vitae’s intimidating impressive Researcher Development Framework as well as the top tips I received when I first started: Knowledge and intellectual abilities: This is sub-divided into knowledge base, intellectual skill and resourcefulness. Research questions: Developing clear research questions has helped me identify where my research is going plus methodologies to consider. Research mind: I'm currently working on developing my "academic voice" as well as the ever-important critical thinking skill. Research tools:  I've learnt M...
Read more

The First Law of Thermodynamics

Happy New Week. The week's topics: UPDATED!! First Law of Thermodynamics: - the first law as it relates to the universe; - revision of heat, work, the thermodynamic potentials (U, H, A, G); and - the 1st Law and its application to Open Systems "Thermodynamics is a branch of physics which deals with the energy and work of a system. Thermodynamics deals only with the large scale response of a system which we can observe and measure in experiments. Small scale gas interactions are described by the kinetic theory of gases. There are three principal laws of thermodynamics which lead to the definition of thermodynamic properties which help us to understand and predict the operation of a physical system." (NASA). “The first law of thermodynamics is the application of the conservation of energy principle to heat and thermodynamic processes.” (All energy in the universe is accounted for). “The laws of thermodynamics are special laws upon which the other [natural] laws depend”...
Read more