I'm sure I'm not the only one in these parts to find the many variants of modern fame a little confusing: You-Tube famous, or Tik-Tok famous, were not things I learned to deal with my youth. And the myriad platforms and routes-to-fame out there today make it very difficult (for some of us) to figure out just how famous somebody is, even when we've heard of them: Vicar Street famous? 3-Arena famous? Stadium famous?
But as confusing as I find the whole thing, even I have no doubt whatsoever that Taylor Swift is very, very famous indeed*, and in fact multiple-nights-in-a-stadium famous - as evidenced by her series of concerts in Dublin this summer.
And I found the most interesting thing about the build-up and coverage of those events to be this story: Quake it off: Seismic activity in Wexford as Swift played (rte.ie). - in which Eleanor Dunn (a PhD candidate in DIAS) set out to monitor the seismic activity during the concerts, checking to see if the seismic waves produced would match the rhythms of the songs being sung (and danced to) in the stadium.
It's the sort of fun, cross-disciplinary activity that really appeals to me, and I think would appeal to students too. Which is why its great news that the team behind SwiftQuake are now offering a CPD event in Portlaoise Ed centre in October.
It also provides an opportunity for physics teachers to reclaim earthquakes from our geography-teaching colleagues who somehow appropriated the whole area decades ago!
There are multiple videos explaining the work very well here: Swift Quake Dublin (@swift_quake) / X (I imagine they're on tik-tok and other platforms too - but I wouldn't know.....)
The idea was (I believe) inspired by the Seattle research described so well in this podcast: Swift quakes and new podcast music inspired by the fine-structure constant – Physics World
Details are:
Teaching Earthquake Science in Geography, Physics and Maths - with Citizen Seismometers
when: October 15th, 2024 (09:30 - 16:00)
where: Laois Education Centre, Portlaoise
register at: https://www.laoisedcentre.ie/cpd-courses/post-primary-courses/3174-quake-shake-teacher-workshop-15-10-24.html
(those registered will be in with a chance to host a raspberry shake seismometer in their school)
more info: quakeshake@cp.dias.ie
the first time I really registered Ms Swift was with this story, which I thought showed her in a good light.....Swift Quake Dublin (@swift_quake) / X
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