The First Bob Patterson Grant

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The First Bob Patterson Grant

• A Learning Adventure
• Bob Plummer

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Sunday, 11July2005 Greater Cincinnati and
Northern Kentucky Airport, Electronic Gate Sign
Override
LGW is Londons Gatwick airport
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Arrive Gatwick London 830. BritRail Pass to
Kings Cross Thames Link station. The evidence of
the 7July attacks was clearAccess to several
tube lines closed off
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Kings Cross Rail station Tributes to the victims
of the July 7th bombings.
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Rail to Cambridge, Careful! use a station with
an INTEGER designation
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In Cambridge
Westcott House on Jesus Lane.
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And the beautiful Old Court that was to be the
center of my next two weeks.
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• Heads of the program
• Adam Smith, an expert on political parties in the
  North in the American Civil War and
• Suzanne Lynch, whose PhD thesis on Virginia Wolf
  is being passed around Cambridge to be read for
  pleasure.

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Bags up to the second floor (the British start
counting with zero) to a 2-room suite with a
great view.
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The Bun Shop has nothing to do with buns. The
lack of any association between pub names and pub
interiors is a standard feature of British pubs.
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Nice cool sleeping, but the idea of just a duvet
with a bottom sheet doesnt leave much
flexibility.
European cell phone free with the rental car.
Plugged it in to charge it, with a negative
result. Next time I turned ON the wall outlet,
and it worked fine.
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Cambridge is over 800 years old, founded by
Oxford students who were thrown out for murdering
a townie. There were no colleges at firstthey
just studied in churches. The first college,
Peterhouse, wasnt founded till 1284.
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Cambridge is a small academic town, Gothic
buildings,
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with lots of narrow streets,
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and bicycles.
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and LOTS of tourists.
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• Cambridge was Parliamentarian, as Oxford was
  Royalist
• science dominated as opposed to humanities
• but both schools were for the production of
  clergy
• In 17th century United States, 80 of the
  ministers were educated in Cambridge.

Westcott House has that as its purpose still, as
explained by the Reverend Angela Tilby, its vice
principle.
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Newtons statue in Trinity College Chapel is as
far from the altar as possible. He was a
dissenter, got special dispensation to become a
fellow of Trinity without taking holy orders.
Almost unheard of before. He also felt that one
could extrapolate from the basis of gravity to
morality
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Another view of Newton, outside London Library
inspired by a William Blake painting.
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William Blake The Ancient of Days The
inspiration for the Newton statue with Newton as
Gods Instrument
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16th century Trinity College, where Newton
studied and taught
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The new look of Trinity College in their
math-science complex.
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Across the street (Jesus Lane) to Jesus College
for a lecture on higher education in England.
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Jesus College has lots of abstract sculptures
sitting around.
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And some not as abstract
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University Education in Britain

• University Education in Britain was free until
  1999
• then went up to 1000 now 4000
• but paid over ones lifetime.
• Alumni associations are new.

..
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University Education in Britain

• For Cambridge, you apply to a college.
• Say Sidney Sussex has 6 places in history, and 60
  applicants.
• You would have taken O level exams at age 16, and
  maybe left school after.
• Or gone on to A levels at age 18 in maybe as many
  as 3 subjects.

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University Education in Britain

• But when you get accepted to University in
  History, you study ONLY history for 3 years
• And you dont have required classes
• Perhaps you have a moral tutor who says she is
  NOT there to teach, gives you a list of books to
  read, and assigns an essay topic.
• You read it out to her next week, she comments,
  and you go away and improve it (or not).
• After 3 years you take exams

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Lunch at Tatties, book shopping at Heffers
(one of the worlds great bookshops)
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The Backs, along the river Cam, behind the
colleges where punting and lying in the grass
takes place.
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Bridge of Sighs
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And quite possibly doors into another world.
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Science and Philosophy Seminar. 5 of us students
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Dinner was a poached salmonmeals were great in
general, with especially fine choices for
dessert.
After dinner, off to the Eagle Pub
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Eagle Pub where Crick and Watson met to discuss
the structure of DNA
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And American airmen in World War II wrote their
names on the ceiling
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Mayfield Elementary school. Ages 611Someone
burned the school down last September, so they
are in temporary buildings.
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Smart boards in every classroom, mostly used as
screens for projectors, or white boards.
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And the 5th level are making polyhedra out of
cloth.
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Our guides, two bright, self confident young men
who were delighted to be showing us around rather
than being in class the last week of school (in
July!).
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On the way home, lunch at the Sir Isaac Newton
Pub.
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Nothing to do with Newton on the inside
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I lunch with a bicyclist while watching the Tour
de France, and get lots of inside information.
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Continued see Part B