"Copenhagen" radio play

On Sunday night Radio 3 broadcast a long radio play (2 hours) about a meeting during the Second World War between two of the greats of quantum physics, Niels Bohr, who was Danish, and Werner Heisenberg, who was German. The meeting took place in the capital of Denmark, hence the title. It is an important incident for the ethics of science. No one really knows exactly what happened but Heisenberg seemed to want to talk to Bohr about the German atomic bomb programme. I had always thought Heisenberg was regarded as dodgy for continuing to work in Germany at this time, but a bit of Internet research suggests that his "crime" may well have been to avoid becoming a martyr and refusing to defect to America. Here's the link. Listen and see what you think.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ppwn6

Bragg on Bragg

Lord Bragg of Wigton, a former pupil of the school, has a great interest in Physics and has done a lot to promote Physics through his Radio 4 programmes. I've posted about his book "On Giants' Shoulders" before. You can borrow it from Wigton library.

This week, Melvyn Bragg's In Our Times programme has been about Crystallography. This is basically when you fire X-rays at the atoms in a crystal. The gaps between the atoms act like slits so the the X-rays spread and interfere with each other as they pass. The complicated pattern that you get can be interpreted to give the structure.

Here's the link to the programme. I think it's valid for a year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p0s9s

Two of the key founders of this area of study were William Henry Bragg and his son Lawrence Bragg. William was born at Westward, very close to Wigton. They both won the Nobel Prize for Physics, the only parent/child duo to have done so.

Time

Castlerigg Stone Circle near Keswick must be one of the earliest scientific sites, if you think about it. Scientists make careful observations and record them. These ancient people made careful observations about the movement of the Sun through the seasons and recorded it. It will be impressive if modern scientific findings are as durable. The study of time is one of the most important areas in Physics. What exactly is time? One of my teachers said that it was the thing that meant that two objects could occupy the same space. (Think about it!) Isaac Newton thought that time was independent of space - as if there was a big clock sat outside the Universe so that there is the same time everywhere. Einstein showed that isn't true. First, light has a fixed speed, so that when I look at the Sun, it is like it was 8 minutes ago because that's how long it takes the light to get here. What does that do to the concept of NOW? Secondly, Einstein showed that time can be stretched if you travel fast. A second takes longer if you are travelling faster. To understand this, read Einstein for Beginners. It's in the school library. See my other blog for details: http://www.idareyoutoborrow.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/einstein-for-beginners.html

Brilliant science podcasts

One of my fellow science teachers found this brilliant set of explanations of scientific ideas:

http://www.nakedscientists.com/

"Naked" as in stripped down to the bare essential ideas, rather than, well, you know what.  Try telling that to the school's locked down Google!

Magnetic nail polish

Perhaps this could be sub-titled "An old man makes a fool of himself"??  My Physics teachers's email network alerted me to magnetic nail polish. You apply it and whilst it is wet you hold the cap of the bottle over your finger nail. The cap contains a patterned magnet which pulls iron filings (one person suggested cobalt, which is also magnetic) into the pattern of the magnets.  I had a great time swanning around with it on at school...

Two things Lower Sixth students should consider

You should consider becoming a 16-19 member of the Institute of Physics.  It's free.

Follow this link:
http://www.iop.org/education/student/youth_membership/page_41684.html


I've explained about the Headstart programme of university taster courses that one of last year's students went on.  They are mainly Engineering and the Physical Sciences, but might help you to decide about a more vocationally based course for a subject that you haven't studied in school.

These courses cost, as far as I can see.

http://www.etrust.org.uk/headstart.cfm

Those Horizon programmes

BBC2 has shown two brilliant Horizon documentaries on the Physics of the entire Universe and the Physics of the really small.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mgllj/Horizon_20122013_How_Big_is_the_Universe/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01mmrc0/Horizon_20122013_How_Small_is_the_Universe/

Hopefully these will still be valid for the next week or two.  Watch them!