The British Science Festival recently took place in Guildford, Surrey. Speakers such as Simon Singh and Robert Winston took to the floor in order to enthuse people about science, to batter down its complicated, unfriendly image and to show how important it is in everyday life. I was involved on the opening Saturday, representing the National Physical Laboratory (NPL, an organisation for which I do not, and have never, worked) for the second time at such an outreach event.
My job was to lure passers-by in, to pique their interest sufficiently that they turned up to one of the 90 minute lectures that NPL were running. In order to do this we had been supplied with some fun toys: a static electricity wand, a Wimshurst machine and copious amounts of liquid nitrogen. The wand was great for the smaller children, who ran about the place suspending foil shapes in mid-air, and the older ones were suitably impressed by the sparks produced by the Wimshurst machine. Best of all however, was the liquid nitrogen. We smashed leaves to smithereens after dipping them in it, then briefly put our own hands in before removing them unscathed. The assembled crowds gasped as we spilled it over the table, and we had great fun with balloons, putting them in the dewar (essentially a big thermos flask) so that they shrunk down to nothing and then placing them back on the table where they slowly increased to full size as if by magic.
The best tricks (including the glowing gherkin and the electric sausage) were left for the lectures, devised and delivered by the fantastic Michael de Podesta MBE. These covered the themes of electricity, light and heat; basic topics which are often poorly understood. They all boil down to essentially the same thing: jiggling. The atoms in hot things jiggle much more than the atoms in cold things, as they jiggle they give out light, and so on. A great way of describing things, and one which was lapped up by the audience.
The lectures were in fact a very condensed version of the first three sessions of a six-week evening course that Michael runs, called 'Protons for Breakfast'. The aim of the course is to give people a basic understanding of science so that when confronted with the latest media scare story they can cut through the rubbish and make up their own minds. It has so far been hugely successful, and I would highly recommend it to anyone living in the Teddington area. The course is suitable for everyone aged from 9 to 99 who wants to get a better understanding of how everything in science fits together.
My job was to lure passers-by in, to pique their interest sufficiently that they turned up to one of the 90 minute lectures that NPL were running. In order to do this we had been supplied with some fun toys: a static electricity wand, a Wimshurst machine and copious amounts of liquid nitrogen. The wand was great for the smaller children, who ran about the place suspending foil shapes in mid-air, and the older ones were suitably impressed by the sparks produced by the Wimshurst machine. Best of all however, was the liquid nitrogen. We smashed leaves to smithereens after dipping them in it, then briefly put our own hands in before removing them unscathed. The assembled crowds gasped as we spilled it over the table, and we had great fun with balloons, putting them in the dewar (essentially a big thermos flask) so that they shrunk down to nothing and then placing them back on the table where they slowly increased to full size as if by magic.
The best tricks (including the glowing gherkin and the electric sausage) were left for the lectures, devised and delivered by the fantastic Michael de Podesta MBE. These covered the themes of electricity, light and heat; basic topics which are often poorly understood. They all boil down to essentially the same thing: jiggling. The atoms in hot things jiggle much more than the atoms in cold things, as they jiggle they give out light, and so on. A great way of describing things, and one which was lapped up by the audience.
The lectures were in fact a very condensed version of the first three sessions of a six-week evening course that Michael runs, called 'Protons for Breakfast'. The aim of the course is to give people a basic understanding of science so that when confronted with the latest media scare story they can cut through the rubbish and make up their own minds. It has so far been hugely successful, and I would highly recommend it to anyone living in the Teddington area. The course is suitable for everyone aged from 9 to 99 who wants to get a better understanding of how everything in science fits together.
Protons for Breakfast
British Science Festival
Well, it's easier than transporting it back to Teddington...
British Science Festival
Well, it's easier than transporting it back to Teddington...
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