It's a frosty evening in Carrbridge tonight. The bridge here is over 300 years old.

Changed the aspect ratio again. More spiky this time. #SciArt #mathart #papercraft

Me, homework 1985, write about "one one my idols"! Didn't have any, couldn't to do it, detention. Today, son has the same homework. Me: Who are you going to write about? Son (no hesitation): Alistair McIntyre. Huge smile on my face. Alistair was a wonderful friend and neighbour who passed last year.

Old science: The five platonic solids (of which we think only three were known to Plato) are perfect polyhedra. They are the only 3D shapes that are; vertex-transitive, edge-transitive and face-transitive! These 'faceless' versions are my alternative representations. 🧪 #SciArt

Same dodecahedral shape, different aspect ratios for the faces 2:1, 1 :1, 1:2. Just messing about, could be #SciArt #mathart

Representation of melting. 🧪 #SciArt

Went a bit off-plan ( I've always been easily distracted). Accidentally made these. Was clumsily calling them open-ended prism-stellated platonic-polyhedra. Very pleased to find they are in Heinz Strobl's Snapology work.🧪

A pleasant spot, looking across the Firth of Clyde this evening.

The Gents toilet floor, University of Glasgow. Very sharp, very clean, a great example of the p4m plane group. 🧪 #symmetry #maths

Holidays are always a good time to mess about. Been exploring dynamic paper models; this open-ended pan-symmetric hepta-cube has 3 degrees of freedom, and some of the conformations are flat! 🧪 #SciComm #Geometry

Getting there slowly (I blame the day job), 100 should be enough!

Hey Scientists and Technical people of BlueSky. I was going to make an open ended pansymmetric heptacube, but got distracted. What is the name for this tetrahedral variant? 🧪 #SciComm #Science #Math #Papercraft #ChemSky

Plastic Tsunami #Sciart #infographic

“It’s been an amazing journey - gaining new experiences, unlearning and learning new things.” A big congratulations to everyone that graduated this winter season, you’ve achieved an incredible milestone. This is just the beginning of an amazing journey. @uofgalumni.bsky.social

Time to build. Simple shapes which show a concerted motion; squeeze one diagonal and the other extends. Just need to make a few more.

Hello #ChemSky people. I'm trying to re-engage after a hectic Semester. #ITeachChem For the record: GenChem labs;Yr-1 Atoms, elements and QM ideas;Yr-2 Quant chem labs;Yr-3 Administrator (2 exams to go);Yr-5 Lanthanide and actinides;PGT Neutron scattering. All done, and so am I.

The best advice I gave today: "Don't put a piddock in your pocket."

I've a lecture course on f-block chemistry comming up. This ferrocerium fire starter is an excellent demonstration of just how electropositive lanthanides are.🧪

Today's beans have arranged themselves in the p4mm plane group. And I'm thinking it would have been a better lesson if I'd given students objects and specified a plane group in which to arrange them. Hindsight!🧪

Ignoring the developmental and genetic differences in my beans, can you tell what I've been teaching? That's right, "How to identify a plane group", and this layout is p4. 🧪

Molecules I've made (in model from). My very first synthesis in a research context; 4-Ethoxyiodobenzene. The paper described a "yellow oil", for me, colourless crystals that blocked the condenser. Downside; having to muck about with the vacuum distillation. Upside; more pure than those guys. 🧪

Self-indulgent, but found my old Cochrane's student model kit. Making molecules to which I have a connection. From those PhD days (~1992) I made this rhenium(I) trithiacyclononane tricarbonyl cation (unpublished). Spectacular proton NMR, magnetic inequivalence, an AA'A"BB'B"CC'C"DD'D" spin system.🧪

Bit of a renovation project. Designed by Prof L.F.Fieser, originally sold by Aldrich, these vintage molecular model kits allow students to understand "... conformational and steric effects as well as geometric relationships". #ChemEd 🧪

First I find this.

Not all of the molecular model sets I've recently acquired are tatty and grubby. I believe this is a Catalin space-filling model with Bakelite atoms. Oh the excitement, it's like Lego from the 1940s, what shall I make? 🧪 #SciComm

This is camphor; a rigid and chiral ketone. It finds little use these days, but you may encounter it as a component of the taste of Rosemary.🧪#SciComm

This is Anethole; the flavour of aniseed. Soluble in ethanol, but not in water, you see this compound as the cloudy precipitate when you pour your Ricard/Sambuca/Ouzo/Raki over ice. 🧪 #SciComm

This decision is inexplicable. I'm very angry that the science is continuing to be ignored by those elected to represent us. It will cost us all, dearly. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Adjacent to this iconic mountain today; Buachaille Etive Mor. Secretly quite pleased when eldest decided it was too midgy to continue, and we could retire to The Green Welly. #Scotland

This is Zingerone. A much better name than the legal IUPAC one; 4-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl) butan-2-one! Cooking ginger chemically transforms the gingerol molecule into sweeter and more flavoursome zingerone.🧪 #SciComm

Another small molecule from the "antique" model set: (R)-Linalool ( C black, H white, O red) is the molecule responsible for the smell of lavender. #SciComm 🧪

"One man's rubbish is another man's treasure" Rescued lots of grubby old chemistry model sets from a teaching lab clear out. This one scrubbed up well. Not so good free standing - heavy balls, long springs- but okay with the right support. (R)-Carvone aka spearmint flavour #SciComm 🧪

Across Loch Long #Scotland

Tiny treasure revealed by the low tide at Cove today. Uranium glass #Everydayelements 🧪 Popular and fashionable between 1880-1920, which coincides with the post industrial movement of wealthy Glaswegian merchants out of the city to large country houses in this corner of the Firth of Clyde.

This vertex and edge truncated (maybe bevelled) tetrahedron seems to be a great shape to build carbon based molecular models. I need to grow it into the diamond structure.🧪

Seem to be doing an impromptu tour of the erratics of Loch Long today. #notthebedrock #Scotland

My surprising fact for today. Needed the centroid to vertex distance for this cuboctahedron. Thought I'd got the sum wrong; it is the same as the edge length! Apparently the only polyhedron where this is true!🧪

I like this pair: Dodecahedron disguised as a cube and cube disguised as a dodecahedron. Helping to show the related symmetries #SciComm 🧪

I am an academic parent, but my view is that doing this sort of thing with the kids is so much more important. A good day today: There and back again, to the very bottom of Goatchurch Cavern #Mendip Days to remember #caving

Been trying to make some Platonic solids (reinventing the wheel), because every budding scientist should have a set of these. Nearly there. Each of these has the same sized circumsphere, diameter 8 cm, which means the net of each one fits nicely on A4. #SciComm 🧪

One offspring belaying the other. I'm claiming that parental success. And much gratitude to the wonderful Barnaby Ling, my former science teacher and outdoor enthusiast.

Still exploring paper representations of the diamond structure. In this one the atoms are truncated octahedra, which fill exactly half the available space. I'm rediscovering interpenetrating bicontinuous cubic spaces. Need more "atoms" to show this better. 🧪 #Diamond #SciComm #SciArt

Thinking about all the teeth that have been extracted before my visit today. #Glasgow

This one, a minimalist representation of the atomic structure of diamond (just 2 sheets of A4 paper). 🧪 #diamond #chemistry #scicom #sciart #art #papercraft

The internal angle of a pentagon is 108 degrees. The angle from my truncated tetrahedra is 109.5. This shoddy looking dodecahedral cluster might be a good example of cumulative errors, not just poor PVA-skills! 🧪

Results released, academic year over, time pick up some unfinished projects. Making ping-pong ball models of the first 25 spherical harmonics.🧪 #ChemEd #Scicomm #Quantum

Thinking of shapes I could use to make an aesthetically pleasing model of the diamond structure. Thought truncated tetrahedron would be good to try. Made some. Too good! It's an actual space-filling plesiohedron! No holes! A truncated tetrahedron is the voroni cell if the diamond structure. Duh! 🧪

Alright the utahraptor skull base is finally done, got the mouth and jaw interiors done, everything is lifesize, followed as close as I could to everything on this as I could find. Now it’s ready to be prepped for it’s paper mache base #paleoart #wip #cardboard #sciart

Still testing out some ideas. This was quick to make, just 2 sheets of A4. A minimal sphere to represent ions, here assembled into that everyday sodium chloride structure-type. 🧪 #Chemsky #ChemEd #SciComm #SciArt #Art