Roger Moore: Physics.
Roger Moore, aslo known to us as "Mini Moore" was for a period of time, my physics teacher while I was studying for A-Levels. He was a diminuvtive guy, who was struggling to deal with the up-and-coming breed of youngsters who showed little or No respect for thier elders. We, however were a bunch of 18year old guys who had a serious soft-spot for this guy. He was kind, gentle, and prone to making the best toys known to man.

At one period in time, for some reaon were were talkign about stable structures, and honeycomb came into the conversation. Mini reconed he could demonstrate this.... He made a plastecene dam around the glass on the Old Overhead projector, and filled it with soapy water. Armed with a length of hose, he blew bubbles, and created a hone-comb of bubbles. One problem... His breathing was not constant. bubbles were different sizes.

5 minutes later, he'd made a glass nozzle and was usign the lab's gas supply to blow tiny bubbles. these were projected neatly onto the wall, albeit a bit feint. He then wanted bigger bubbles.... so hit upon a plan to destroy the others.. lighted splint. Neat.

The lesson went on with Mini finding excuses to burn the bubbles... and we inqured as to whether he'd given thought to blowing BIG bubbles....

One week later, we turned up to a lesson, and mini was wearing a grin that threatened to separate the top of his head from the rest of his body...
"Good morning gentlemen, Inspired by your question last week, I've made soemthing..."

he motioned towards the corner of the lab where a rather simple rig stood.

He then proceeded to blow foot-ball sized bubbles with propane... The bubbles were a bit too heavy to go floating, but that didn't matter, he poked them with a lghted splint, and they turned into one of the most beautiful things I've seen. A gentle orange fire-ball that floated up and hit the ceiling, and expanding in ring of fire that rolled out accross the ceiling until it ran out of gas.

Other such experiments were more complex, I remeber him playing with large coils, capacitors and lumps of aluminum, and demonstrating the theory behind the Iraqi super-guns suspected electro-magnetic propulsion system. He embedded a 1 meter length of aluminium scaffolding pole in the lab's wall... He simply grinned a sheepish grin and said "oops".

Mini was an inspirational figure for us, a nice guy, and a great teacher.

If anyone reading this lives in or near the sleepy Cumbrian town of Sedbergh, and occasionally bumps into the legend of physics teacher, probably now around 70 years old, with comicly big ears, Tell him we remeber him, and that without doubt, he was the best teacher we ever had.
( Humpty Dumpty was Pushed Is unaware of having any limits., Thu 10 Nov 2005, 11:35, Reply)