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Articles by Simon J. Lock
The formation and early evolution of the Earth and the Moon
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Why should we promote public engagement with science?
1. Introduction In an influential 1987 article, Thomas and Durant asked a question that remains pertinent today: why should we promote the public understanding of science? (Thomas and Durant, 1987). Five years later, the journal Public Understanding of Science (PUS) was launched as a forum for debating this question as it grew in policy and practical significance.
Giant impacts stochastically change the internal pressures of terrestrial planets
Abstract Pressure is a key parameter in the physics and chemistry of planet formation and evolution. Previous studies have erroneously assumed that internal pressures monotonically increase with the mass of a body. Using smoothed particle hydrodynamics and potential field method calculations, we demonstrate that the hot, rapidly rotating bodies produced by giant impacts can have much lower internal pressures than cool, slowly rotating planets of the same mass.
When Earth and the Moon Were One
On August 1, 1971, while exploring the eastern edge of the lava plain known as Mare Imbrium on the silent, serene lunar surface, Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin found something remarkable: a profoundly old piece of lunar crust, a relic more than four billion years old that carried clues to the moon’s formation.
A New Theory of How the Moon Formed
The Moon has been a point of fascination in almost every culture since apes decided that walking was a pretty neat idea, honored with innumerable deities and the subject of many myths and legends. It hangs in the sky, dwarfing the stars and constantly changing through its monthly cycle. What’s more, the Moon is the only place that humans have set foot outside of our own planet, the farthest we have strayed into the dark near-infinite cosmos. As a kid I shared this fascination.
Huge impact could have smashed early Earth into a doughnut shape | New Scientist
For a brief time during its infancy, Earth was not a planet. It was a hot, doughnut-shaped blob called a synestia. Rocky worlds can be pulverised by collisions with each other, mushrooming into synestias before cooling off and becoming more familiar-looking celestial spheres, a new study says.
The structure of terrestrial bodies: Impact heating, corotation limits, and synestias
During accretion, terrestrial bodies attain a wide range of thermal and rotational states, which are accompanied by significant changes in physical structure (size, shape, pressure and temperature profile, etc.). However, variations in structure have been neglected in most studies of rocky planet formation and evolution.
Correction: Beyond Academia - Interrogating Research Impact in the Research Excellence Framework
The first author’s name is spelled incorrectly. The correct name is: Emma Terama. The correct citation is: Terama E, Smallman M, Lock SJ, Johnson C, Austwick MZ (2016) Beyond Academia—Interrogating Research Impact in the Research Excellence Framework. PLoS ONE 11(12): e0168533. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0168533 Reference 1. Terämä E, Smallman M, Lock SJ, Johnson C, Austwick MZ (2016) Beyond Academia—Interrogating Research Impact in the Research Excellence Framework. PLoS ONE 11(12): e0168533.
Beyond Academia - Interrogating Research Impact in the Research Excellence Framework
Big changes to the way in which research funding is allocated to UK universities were brought about in the Research Excellence Framework (REF), overseen by the Higher Education Funding Council, England. Replacing the earlier Research Assessment Exercise, the purpose of the REF was to assess the quality and reach of research in UK universities–and allocate funding accordingly. For the first time, this included an assessment of research ‘impact’, accounting for 20% of the funding allocation.
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