Abstract: A gas filling apparatus comprising a lance and control unit remote from the lance is disclosed. The lance has a dispensing nozzle for dispensing gas through an aperture. The lance additionally has a manually operable switch for sending a signal to the control unit to commence dispensing of gas. The provision of the manually operable switch on the lance should result in less errors being made during the filling process, particularly where a plurality of lances are simultaneously operated by a single operator. The lance may additionally comprise a visual indicator indicating the state reached in the dispensing cycle.

Abstract: A gas filling apparatus comprising a lance and control unit remote from the lance is disclosed. The lance has a dispensing nozzle for dispensing gas through an aperture. The lance additionally has a manually operable switch for sending a signal to the control unit to commence dispensing of gas. The provision of the manually operable switch on the lance should result in less errors being made during the filling process, particularly where a plurality of lances are simultaneously operated by a single operator. The lance may additionally comprise a visual indicator indicating the state reached in the dispensing cycle.

Abstract: The invention provides a lightweight high numerical aperture imaging device (1) comprising two rotationally symmetric curved mirrors (1a), (1b), which can be combined with various other components to facilitate solar-powered flight (including via direct deflection of sunlight (2c), in a manner akin to a solar sail or via solar thermal propulsion (1c)), to facilitate terrestrial power generation, and other uses for high numerical aperture imaging devices, including, for example, achieving very high concentrations of light or other sorts of wave (or other sorts of physical entities that satisfy equivalent “ballistic” equations of motion), or being used in reverse to form a beam that has a small angle spread, producing super-resolving optical systems (for. example for photolithographic purposes) or facilitating interlinking of communication network components. A detailed method for designing such a device is also disclosed.