On 28/10/12 09:29, Martin Brown wrote:
I remember Prof Kopal he was one of the people who got me interested
in astronomy as a youngster. He was patron of the local astrosoc and
did an annual lecture.

I have a fund of ZK stories, but mostly not suitable for here.
His soft Czechoslovakian accent was very easily imitated. so almost all
of us did it. Occasionally, a group of postgrads would be holding a
conversation in ZK-speak when ZK would turn up and join in; whether he
didn't notice or didn't mind, we never discovered,

[Stability of L4/5:]
I think it could just about be done with 6th form maths, but I am not
convinced that (m)any sixth formers would be able to follow it!

Mechanics in rotating co-ordinates is not 6th-form maths!
Nor is the general theory of small oscillations. I think it might
be the other way round -- that you couldn't do it with 6th-form
maths, except by spending a lot of time developing a framework for
the proof, but on the other hand that there are some very talented
sixth-formers who would be able to read a proof such as that in Roy,
and fill in the gaps themselves. But that's just an opinion.

--
Andy Walker,
Nottingham.