And the home of the brave

"You can thank the Americans for that."
"Why American can't work in SI units, I don't know."
"And once again the Americans have moved in and changed all the units on us!"
Turns out my engineering professor didn't think the Poise (1 g/cm*s) and Stoke (1 cm^2/s) were the best units for measuring dynamic and kinematic viscosity. It was a good lecture, though, the second time in one day I found myself listening to an explanation of boundary layers. The first was in the physics class on fluids and was full of mathematical approximations related to dimensional and scaling analysis. This one was much more pictorial and eventually led into a warning against falling into a tub of tomato sauce.

The U.S. pops up in the intellectual property class, too. I find it pretty interesting that, compared to the theoretical legal studies classes I've taken at Berkeley where examples are drawn solely from U.S. cases unless 'international' is explicitly in the title, the lecturer for the laws class I'm taking here moves freely between cases from the U.S. Supreme Court, Australian High Court, and Canadian appeals courts, and asks international students if they are aware of ways in which their home governments have been addressing the relevant issues. It's a small example but an example nonetheless of what seems to be a trend for ANU academics (particularly in the social sciences) to keep an eye to global conditions rather than maintain an inward focus.

Anyhow, this afternoon I was feeling undecided about what to do next so made the sensible decision and wound* my way over to Bruce Ridge for a bit of mountain biking amid the eucalyptus. Bruce Ridge isn't huge or incredibly technical, but it's a pleasant place to be in general and has enough log piles to remind me that I never actually mastered the whole picking-up-your-front-wheel thing. Ah well. I appreciated the trail builders' vision on this part:

* Due to an excellent memory for directions, "wind" remains the operative word! No worries, though-- the way home is always just to point towards Telstra Tower as B&G sits near the base of Black Mountain Road.