The Top 10 Geeky Holiday Spots – Part 1
Posted Fri, Aug 14th 2009, 20:39Found this in “Recommend” Magazine. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if I can assist with your holiday! www.totaltravelexperts.com
From The Sunday Times
August 9, 2009
The top 10 geeky holiday spots
John Graham-Cumming picks the top 10 from his guide to the 128 places across the planet where science and technology come alive
Jet engines at Farnborough
The Farnborough Air Sciences Museum is a concentrated dose of aviation history with a star exhibit: Frank Whittle’s W2/700 jet engine. Whittle patented the jet engine in 1930, and by 1941 the first British jet aircraft, the Gloster E.28/39, was in the air. The engine, and the plane, are the ancestors of all the jets flying today.
There’s also an early afterburner on display. It worked by injecting fuel into the hot gases shooting from a jet engine, creating extrathrust. The afterburner was designed to be installed behind Whittle’s engine.
It’s not all engines, though: the museum also has aircraft, a working cockpit from a 1971 Hawker Siddeley Trident passenger jet and a collection of wind-tunnel models used to test Concorde’s shape.
The museum is open only at weekends, but it’s entirely free, and volunteers are on hand to explain all the exhibits (01252 375050, www.airsciences.org.uk). It’s the Farnborough in Hampshire, not Kent, just a skip
off the M3 at Junction 4.
The geeky bit: jet engines are simpler to understand than car engines. Air enters the front and hits a fan-like compressor, fuel is injected in the middle and burnt, then the hot and now pressurised air leaves the nozzle at the back. Just before leaving the nozzle, the air turns a turbine connected via a single axle to the compressor, keeping it spinning. The aircraft moves because of two of Newton’s laws: a force is created (the thrust) because a mass of air moving through the engine is accelerated (Newton’s second law), and an equal and opposite force pushes the engine forward (Newton’s third law).
Atomic bombs in Las Vegas
In the 1950s, Las Vegas was the place to go to watch a nuclear test. At the nearby Nevada testing site more than 1,000 nuclear bombs were exploded, and the few tests that were not performed below ground were visible from the Las Vegas strip and became a tourist attraction.
Nuclear testing first went entirely underground, then stopped altogether (replaced by computer simulation), but Vegas hasn’t forgotten its part in nuclear history. There’s a museum (00 1 702-794 5161, atomictestingmuseum.org) explaining the process and technology of nuclear testing.
This being Vegas, there’s also an entertainment element, with a nuclear-blast simulator in which you can live the experience of being close to an explosion. The Ground Zero Theater sits you in a bunker observing a test blast, complete with sounds, shaking and shock wave. It’s possible to visit the actual test site by booking far in advance (295 0944, www.nv.doe.gov/nts/tours.htm); non-US citizens must allow at least six weeks for approval.
The geeky bit: the click, click of a Geiger counter is caused by an avalanche of ions inside the radiation detector’s argon-gas-filled tube. One end of the tube is made of mica; the rest of the tube is coated with metal to form a cathode, and a pin-like metal anode sticks into the tube’s centre. A large voltage is applied between the cathode and the anode. When radiation enters the tube through the mica window, it ionises the gas. These ions are attracted by the anode or cathode, ionising more argon, causing a current to flow. When the current flows, the counter’s loudspeaker clicks.
The travel bit: British Airways (0844 493 0758, ba.com/lasvegas) has seven nights at the four-star Luxor from £664pp, including flights from Heathrow. Or try Bon Voyage (0800 316 3012, bon-voyage.co.uk).
