Welcome to The Physics and Energy Dept. Blog!

St. Als Transition Year student. :)

2011-03-07T14:53:00.010Z

Monday: Today is my first day of work experience. When I got into UL I went to Maria Quinn's office. She introduced me to John Sweeney and I got a tour of the labs. When we went into the first year physics lab I was introduced to Eamon Campbell. He had a class at the time and he showed me the vernier microscope that they were using. I looked at a pencil line and my ring under the microscope and it looked amazing!! I could see loads of tiny silver specs from the lead and with my ring I could see tiny scratches. Then at 11 am when I finished my tour I visited Eamonn again and I did a laboratory experiment “measuring gravity (g) by free fall”. I really enjoyed this as I could do the experiment myself and it wasn't teachers showing me the experiment in school. When I was finished the experiment I went for lunch. After lunch I went to John Sweeney. We went to the computer room and using the results from my experiments we plotted this graph in excel:
John then showed me how to blog my weeks work.Then at 3pm I had environmental chemistry with Jimmy Kelly and 2 other transition year students Ailbhe and Leah who are twins. Jimmy showed us how all the equipment in that lab is used.

Tuesday: I started at 10am today so before my class I went for a swim in the 50m pool. My lab was scheduled in the Health Science building which meant crossing the wobbly bridge! For this lab session I was with Mary Barrett. Leah, the other transition year student was also with me. In this class we dissected a rat!!! At the start I was hesitant but it wasn't too bad. We cut open the rat's stomach and I could see the heart, lungs, kidney... every thing!! Near the end of the class one of the assistants showed us how to take out the brain. It was a lot smaller then I expected and it was kinda unpleasant and we could even hear the skull cracking.When we finished the lab we went back over the bridge for lunch. Afterwards, we attended an Enviormental Science Lecture with Dr. Tom O'Dwyer. When we finished I joined the Equine students for a lab. We were testing for equine influenza in chicken eggs. When that class finished it was time to go home. Second day finished! :(
Wednesday I spent my morning in the Health Science building. I was participating in the Leaving Certificate biology practicals with Dr.Audrey O'Grady and her students. During lunch I sat in on a mock Law trial. This was very interesting and there is a great facility for the court session. After lunch I did chemistry pedagogy lab. This was a class with Dr.Sarah Hayes and Maria Munroe. We also did some shaping/bending of glass. I enjoyed that class and it was finished at 4 pm that was my third day over!!
ThursdayI spent my morning with Mary Barret and Dr.Wynette Reddington. First I was with Mary and I had a Histology Lab with her. Then I had a tour of the labs in the materials & surface science institute (MSSi) with Wynette. I saw many different research set-ups using various equipment. For example the high resolution electron microscope,XRD !!
After Lunch I was in the chemistry lab with Jimmy Kelly. We were looking at chemicals and equipment that is used in the chemistry labs. I conducted an experiment using a pipette and other equipment. I enjoyed the day and when I was finished my experiment I was finished for the day!!
Friday: Today was my last day of work experience:( I was with John today and we were in the physics research labs. We also went down to the F1 day for TYs. It was an all Ireland competition where schools across Ireland built and designed their own F1 car. There were races and we watched a few. When we were finished we went back to the labs and john showed me a wind turbine and how it works. He also showed me how the back of my fridge works and an experiment where you remove oxygen or hydrogen from water and it forms a gas. At the end of the day I did some work on the blog and I went home.

I really enjoyed the week and would like to thank Maria Q, Maria M, Mary, John, Jimmy, Eamonn, Tom, Jackie, Audrey, Sarah, and Wynette who helped me during the week. It was a great experience!

Laurel Hill Transition Year Student

2011-02-10T09:21:00.021Z

Day One - Monday 7th of February .
Monday morning at 8:45 i rushed out the door with my brother. We arrived at Ul at exactly 9 o clock. After circurling the car park a couple of times we parked and headed in the direction of the physics department. I reached the main reception and soon found Maria Quinn the co - ordinator of the physics department.We set off and i got a quick tour of the physics department. At about half 9 we arrived at John Sweeneys office. John is the Senior technical officer and showed me around for the week. John brought me into all the labs and showed me the different apparatus in the Optics , Energy and Physics labs. We then met with John kelly and went to the paddocks for a tea break and Eammon arrived shortly after. After tea John and I returned to the optic lab which John was preparing for a lab during the week . There was 4 experiments set up and he showed me each one .There was still some setting up to be done with the Demountable Transformer so i got to scan through the booklet as John explained what was happening. Here he also showed me how a sodium lamp worked and we discussed frequency and wave lenghts which was interesting we shook a mirror to look at frequency . After fidling around with differnt wires John decided to put turns there instead of wire. I then went for lunch and arrived back a bit late. We headed to John kellys lab where he was trying to set up an experiment involving the method used by old tv's but the equipment needed was being used in the medical research lab. The second year energy students were in the lab and we went and got ice for their experiments. After we went to the medical research lab where i was introduced to some post - Grades . We then went to the Pc room and soon it was 5 o clock and time to go home .
Day 2 - wednesday the 10th of February.
Wednesday was my second day as i had to play a match with the school on Tuesday. I went to find Maria's office which i had completely forgot how to get to. After being in a few different buildings which i had thought looked familiar i headed to the main reception again and asked for directions . After getting lost a couple more times i reached it soon after 9. Maria brought me down to Eammon's lab which was a 1st year lab. It was their first lab with peter murphy and eammon had arranged a place for me to carry out the experiment also which dealt with Refractive indexes. With the help of eammon i carried out the experiment and drafted my results. After the lab was finished i headed up to John Kellysd lab where there was a laptop set up for me to type up my resluts on Excel. After fidling around with it for a while i got my results up.

Thursday 11th of February
On Thursday we went to the PC room where John told me all about Ip adresses on computers and how you can identify different computers with it.We hepled one of the students to set up a scanner so he could scan items into word. After tea we went to the library where John showed me how to locate books. We also went down to the archives which had huge amounts of books , newspapers, magazines , etc . I hadn't realized how big the library actually was. Later on we hepled a postgrade move a tank of nitrogen from the medical research labs to the MSSI. Here John showed me the Electro Magnet and some other interesting equipment. We then went to John Kellys Lab where we looked at the penny/ feather experiment which involved suckin the air out of the cylinder to create a vacumn . When we did this the feather was no longer slower to fall than the penny. After lunch i went with the Post Grads to see all their projects. First Nathan and Joe showed me the electron microscope.I thought it was really cool.They put in a tiny object to view but it came up in huge magnification. We could pefectly see the different parts which were really only about 34 nanometres .The projects were really interesting but also looked difficult and the post Grads put huge amounts of time trying to get it to work better and improve the project. Immanuel then showed me his project about off shore wind turbines which was also another impressive project.
Day 5 - the 12th of February .
My last day on work experience ! Friday began with John showing me how to download skype. I didn't realize before how convinient and useful skype was. He also showed me how it worked.We then went to the workshop and john showed me how all the equipment woked. I hepled him make a piece of equipment a post grad needed for their project .Later on i went to see two more projects which were being carried out by Susan and Paul . Both of their projects were on opitical coherence tomography. They both looked at different ways to design the otc . It involved sending beams of light into a beam splitter . They told me about how Otc has advantages over other medical equipment and how it worked. Their projects were really impressive. After this Deirdre brought me into the lab and we discussed all about lab safety and the safety thats required from the lab. We looked at different chemicals and sheets had been printed out with all the properties and dangers of the chemicals. Deidre told me about how each time a person was using a chemical they would have to print out the sheet and put it in the file. We also talked about general lab safety rules and looked at them in the lab. John was in charge of designing the physics website for Ul . After lunch he showed me things about web designing and he showed me how he was going to change the website. It was really cool . After this we went to the Optics lab where John showed be the spectrometer. He put a mercury slide into it and when we looked into the spectrometer this time we got to see all the differnt colours the original bluey colour had split up to. There was a range of different colours. We also looked at sodium through the spectrometer. It was then time to go home :( . I really enjoyed my work experience in the physics department. All the people who i met through out my time there made it extremely interesting and enjoyable for me. I learned so much and was sad to be going back to school .I definitly would recommend work experience here and would like to thank everyone who helped me and showed me around throughout the week!

Work Experience

2010-02-26T12:11:00.009Z

Day 1:
Started my work experience at 9:30 on Monday morning. Great! An extra half-hour's sleep! I met up with Maria at reception, and she brought me for a quick tour around the Physics department. She introduced me to Senior Technical Officer John Sweeney, who showed me around for most of the rest of the week. John and I looked around the Physics department some more. He showed me a laser inferometer in the optics lab and the signal generators and oscilloscopes in the instrumentation lab. Before we know it it's half ten. Time for a tea break!
At 11, we headed to another lab to help John Kelly set up for a first year lab. John and John (yeah, it was pretty confusing) look for the equipment they need, and discover they don't have enough cables. I'm given some wire and some small plugs to wire up. When I got that done, I sorted some resistors. At 1, I went off for lunch.
At 2:15, I headed back but get a bit lost. I find my way back to John's office by 2:30. I helped him to repair some equipment. Once we've that done, I built some simple circuits using Snap Circuits, and at half four I went home.

Day 2
When I arrived in the morning John was a bit busy, so I made some more circuits with snap circuits for a while. After that I helped him to set up for a lab he had later on. We took a break, and on our way down to The Paddock for tea, we had a look at some more of the equipment in the optics lab. Really interesting stuff.
At 11, I sat in on a first year lab. I talked to some of the students and looked at what they were doing. They seem to enjoy the courses they were studying. After the lab I meet up with my friends for lunch. In the afternoon, I had another look at the snap circuits before going home.

Day 3
On Wednesday I went to the Materials Surface Science Institute. I met up with Dr Vadood Mousavi. We talked about magnets and he told me about his work on nanowires, very small wires used in computer chips. We then went into the lab and he showed me the equipment and chemicals used to make and study these nanowires. At about 11 o'clock we went for tea.
When we came back we had a look at the microscopes used to study the very small objects studied in the MSSI. We looked at the amazing images produced by these microscopes and talked to the postgrad students who were using them. After that, we met up with Dr Abbasi Gandhi, who had done his PhD on nanowires, and he talked about the work he had done on nanowires. I then went for lunch.
After lunch we looked at some more equipment and Vadood explained more about the way nanowires are made and their uses, and then we went up to look at the computer modelling that is used to predict the results of experiments.

Day 4
I was back in the physics department on Thursday. I went to talk to the PhD students about their projects. These were really interesting, and included a medical scanner that could see through skin, a wind turbine with no gear box, and tests for determining the strengths of materials used in silicon chips. I then went to a lab with Eamonn to do some Leaving Cert Physics experiments.
After lunch, I went to the Chemistry department for a talk on chemical engineering.

The graph of the pendulum experiment I did on Thursday. I nearly got it right!

Day 5
In the morning I did another few Leaving Cert physics experiments. I measured the wavelength of a laser and of the lines on a mercury emission spectrum. After tea, I started this blog and then went for lunch.
After lunch, I helped fix some computers and graphed the results of some of the experiments I did in excel, before finishing this blog.

All in all, I had a great week. I learned a lot and met interesting people. I'd like to thank John, Eamonn, Maria, Zakhia Rahman and Vavood, and all of the other people who I met over this week.

Work Experience in UL.

2010-02-02T14:13:00.007Z

Day 1 Yesterday, Monday the 1st of Febuary was my first day on work experience here in UL. I arrived at the main office at 9.30 to meet Maria who introduced herself and brought me for a brief tour of the physics department. In our travels around the department she introduced me to John and Eamon but most inportantly John Sweeney whom i would be spending the week with. After myself and John had been introduced Maria left me under his supervision.

Our day began when John brought me to the optics lab where he showed me some experiments that had been set up for some students. They were all very interesting to learn about. After a short tea break I was brought to the postgraduate laboratory where i was given a tour of all the different projects that the postgraduates were currently working on. I also got to see some very interesting pieces of equipment being used by the post grads in their research.

At 1 I went for lunch and on returning at 2 John and I went to see a demo on heat detecting cameras which i thought was very interesting. Afterwards Eamon brought me to his lab where we both conducted an experiment. I thouroughly enjoyed this. In total I had a very good first day. I went home looking forward to the upcoming week!

Day 2
Today i began in the Life science department where i was atending a Food Science lab. I got kitted out with my white coat and glasses and joined a group of students whom i would be working with for the duration of the class. Our first experiment was the saponification of food lipids and then did the determiation of iodine number in food lipids. I really enjoyed working with the other students. After lunch i went to the physics students computer lab where john explained blogging and introduced me to this!! Later ill be attending a lecture about light dispersion and refraction.

Day 3
My third day here in UL began with Leo in the Chemistry department. He showed me all of the fancy equipment in the chemistry laboratorys and i got to test some of them out with a couple of experiments. After lucnh John brought me to spend time with the postgraduates. I firstly went with Mike who showed me his work and the very interesting equipment he uses. Afterward Joey showed me all about his fascinating work with optics and lasers which could be used to tell if a person had skin cancer which i really enjoyed and found facinating. I then spent a short while with Andrea who explained all about her project to me.

Day 4
Thismorning i went with Immanuel, who is a physics postgraduate, to see his work on offshore wind turbines. I found his project extremely interesting and topical. After a short tea break John and I went to the college library where John showed me around and explained how it works. After lunch i went with Eamon to his lab where we conducted the freefall experiment and recorded the results. John then showed me all of the internal parts of a computer and then, after many attempts we managed to install windows xp onto the computer from scratch! Another very enjoyable and interesting day in UL had come to an end!

Day 5
How the week flew, here i am writing about my final day in UL. Today began over in the life science department where i attended a plant physiology lab. I was put in a group with three others and we all conducted a practical experiment which was the culture of nutrient deficient plants. I then graphed the results of my freefall experiment using excel which ive shown above.

Its hard to belive an entire week has gone by but you know what they say; Time flies when you're having fun!! I would like to say a huge thanks to John, Maria, Eamon, Jackie, Leo, all the post graduates who kindly took time out to show me their work and anyone else who i met throughout this very interesting and more importantly enjoyable week. It has been a brilliant experience and i would recommend it to anybody interested in science.
Bye :)

Work Experience

2009-11-11T11:32:00.013Z

Day 1,
I went to a science demonstration as part of science week which included exploding custard, rocket balloons and the power of carbon dioxide which I found very interesting. I also went to a lecture about the universe given by a visiting professor also as part of science week this was very interesting and I found it very enjoyable. Then I went to the optics lab with my supervisor and I saw the Newton's rings experiment. I had a very good first day, I though it was very interesting and found it very enjoyable, I also found the staff very helpful.

Day 2,
I was given a tour of the physics department, I saw the optics laboratory, computer laboratory, chemical laboratory, the workshop and the postgraduate laboratory. I liked this because I got to see all the different equipment used in experiments and analysis. I also used equipment used to teach students how to create circuits. Then I went to the gas yard to make dry ice from carbon dioxide, then went to the lab and used the dry ice in an experiment. The experiment showed how alpha particles decayed from a radioactive source. I really liked doing the experiment and using the radioactive materials because I like nuclear physics.

Day 3,
Firstly we installed an operating system onto a computer. We also looked at all of the internal components of a computer. This will be very beneficial for future work with computers. Then we carried out the freefall and pendulum experiment used to find the acceleration of gravity. We were also shown an experiment to demonstrate what happens when a magnet is passed over a semi-conductor with a current flowing through it. I really liked doing the experiments today and working with computers.

Day 4,
Today we finished the freefall and pendulum experiments by putting our results into a graph in microsoft excel. Here are our results:

These are the freefall results.

These are the simple pendulum results.
Then we went to a lecture about Charles Darwin as part of science week, this was very interesting. Then we did another experiment to investigate the fundamental frequency of a stretched string with length. I really liked doing this experiment.
These are the frequency of a string results.

Day 5,
Today was our last day, in the morning we did another experiment. The experiment was to measure the wavelength of monochromatic light using a helium neon(HeNe) laser. Our result was 632nm. We really liked this experiment. Then we went to a lecture on heat and mechanics this was very good. We really enjoyed doing our work experience at U.L. and would like to thank John Sweeny and everyone in the physics department who helped us.

Work Experience, Day 5

2009-03-16T17:12:00.003Z

The last day??? Today we started by working on the computer server so students could print faster. We worked on this yesterday but ran into a few problems so we finished it off this morning. After tea with Eamonn and a VERY interesting talk about photography I started to work on an fm radio for Maria's office. The more soldering the better!!!

For lunch John showed me the new Kemny Business School and the restaurant they have. After lunch we fitted the printer server to its new home and I finished off the radio for Maria. It worked!!!

Thanks to John, Eamonn, Maria,John Bird, Eoin,postgrads and every one else who I was in contact with during the week.

It was a great experience and I would recommend it to anyone with a faint idea of doing physics in college.

Thanks again

Paudie

Bye..........................

Day 4, Work Experience

2009-03-13T08:36:00.006Z

Again this morning working on the blog. The computer lab has nearly become my second home. This morning John and I worked on some computers for a new print server for the physics computer rooms. John added extra memory to the new PC as i looked on. John explained all about the inside of the computer and the importance of the different parts. We met up with Eamonn for a quick break.

We headed back to the office where we worked on the computer and a new laptop for one of the postgraduates. Maria called and gave a radio for her office which she asked me to make and assemble. I worked on the project until lunch. For lunch John took me to the sports bar by the swimming pool which was great as I had never seen that part of the Campus before.

After lunch, Maria took me across the living bridge over to the Health Science buildings to see all the "super" labs they had. It was quite interesting and they have rats there for students to work on. Maria didnt really like them so we moved on in our tour to see the other rooms that they have in the complex.

I then met with Eamonn and joined one of his 1st year labs to do some experiments. I did one of the Leaving Cert experiments which was all about light. This is an interesting experiment and one I had not done before. We took the results from the test and make a graph.

I headed home at 4.00 as i did everyday and looked forward to coming back tomorrow.....

Day 3, Work Experience

2009-03-12T08:32:00.008Z

I started off my day today as normal. Working on the blog and doing some of the physics trivia questions. John called in around 9.20 and we headed up a few floors to meet John Bird who is involved in the Electronics Department. He gave me a tour around the facilities,Showing me all the different pieces of equipment and rooms. I then went into one of the labs and got the chance to make some of my own circuit boards for an electronic dice. I got to see all the steps involved. Although i do things like this at home it was great to see it being done in large pieces of equipment and all the specialised tools. After the PCB was made I went and got all the different parts needed to make the dice. I soldered it all together and tested it over in John's office.

After that I met a guy called Eoin. He showed me FRED the robot who has all different sensors and motors. He is controlled with a laptop and even has wifi. He could sing and had cameras so he could see where he was going. FRED was also able to take photographs at the push of a button. Eoin then showed me an experiment about sound and explained how a speaker can actually be a microphone. Before we finished he showed me how he monitors the computers in his labs. He started messing with a students computer, turning off his keyboard and mouse, Very funny!!!

After lunch, John gave me an electronic bug kit to make. I went back to lab and assembled the project which would walk upto walls and would turn away if it hit something. Once the project was assembled I headed back to John's office where i got to make circuit boards using a special program on his computer. This was very enjoyable as I had not used this kind of software before and was a great way to end the day.
Back to Physics tomorrow.....

Day 2 Work Experience

2009-03-10T13:29:00.010Z

I started off my day today a little differently. I didnt get lost!!! I arrived this morning at around 8.20, ya i know early!I was given access to the computer room alongside john's office. I worked on the blog and started a physics trivia. The is a new experience for me so that was interesting.Trying to type as fast as the thoughts were coming into my head. At around 9.00 John ventured in and from then until tea break(very important) I worked on a small robot project soldering in all the components which is a carry on from yesterday afternoon.

After a break and a bite to eat I got to meet the old veterans,the postgraduates. They showed me around their little HQ. The amount of equipment they have is amazing. They all have there own specialities and projects they are working on. I then went to lunch. After lunch I headed back to the postgrads office where i met Immanuel. He showed me his wind turbine project which was very interesting. We also got a call from another postgrad who is working on a ROV(remotely operated vehicle) to look at the sea floor. Once I was finished with Immanuel, Kate another postgrad showed me her project using a high powered laser to look at the skin. She said this could be used to check if a person had skin cancer but it needed more research first.

After seing all the different projects I headed back to John where we went for a well deserved break with Eamonn down at the local restaurant. A great way to finish the day.
Tomorrow????????

Work Experience 9-13 of March ,Day 1

2009-03-10T08:43:00.006Z

I arrived at the college this morning to try and get to grips with the huge campus. There were not alot of people around which was a perfect oppurtunity to have a little wander. After going around in circles for a while I met up with maria Quinn from the Physics Department. She took to my mentor for the week John Sweeney.
He gave me a tour of the Department and showed me the different facilities around the college.We then went for a well deserved break to finish off the morning. He then took me to the Library where he gave me a "mini project" to do. I spent about an hour and a half wondering through all the books and making the notes needed for the project. Once I had finished that I went to lunch.
In the afternoon i met up with John again. He gave a small robot to make which involved soldering and assembly of gears and other parts. This was alot of fun as i enjoy projects like this. Around four O' clock I headed home and wondered what was instore tomorrow............

Nobel Physics Laureates (day 5)

2008-07-07T09:59:00.003+01:00

I love optical illusions. You know, the type with lots of closely spaced circles that don’t move. You look at it, and it looks like they are rotating (like the famous Enigma painting). They make you feel frustrated that your brain doesn’t have the ability to correctly comprehend the situation and make the correct decisions. Prof Donald Glazer (Prize winner 1960 and inventor of the bubble chamber) showed us many optical illusions of different types, designed to dupe and confuse the brain. His talk was aimed at quantifying the noise that can be generated in the human brain. He mentioned that there is an optimal level of noise that can be added to a circuit which can actually improve the signal. His example made perfect sense. Take a person with diabetes. Diabetics have a tendency to fall over terrible non-healing ulcers which can be very deep). SO this can be visualised by a fairly low signal under the threshold in the brain coming from the feet, therefore the balance cannot be adjusted. Now if you add some ripples in the persons insoles of the shoes, the nerves are continuously stimulated, so the tendency to fall over is drastically reduced. It made sense to the 500+ audience anyway. It works well in studies of the human brain, the idea of “bumping up” the signal by the addition of noise in order to cross a certain threshold. I’m not sure if the people who spend absolute fortunes on super-cooled electrical circuits would agree with him though! He finished by an anecdotal discussion about how marijuana inhibits visual illusory motion.. hardly surprising really......

Something we studied a lot at undergraduate level was the optics of lasers. So it was for this reason that I really enjoyed the lecture by Prof Nicolaas Bloemberg (1981 Prize winner), who gave a historical overview on the development of the laser. His main goal was to bring us right up to date on the development of the atto-second (1×10-18 sec) laser pulse, which has yet to be achieved (currently there are pulses from lasers lasting 1×10-15 sec. The amazing technological development of the laser since its invention by Maiman in the 60’s was documented by each “milestone laser” as he called them, i.e. an increase of the pulsing repetition rate (the gain bandwidth must increase as the pulse gets shorter), or an increase of the power contained in the pulse (higher intensities lead to more non-linearities in the laser). In order to get a sense of scale for the unbelievably unimaginable short length of time a high intensity pulse taking 1×10-18 sec takes, we were asked to consider the alternative time scale of 1×1018 sec (called 1 exa-second by the way). Any idea how long this makes? If you thought it was only a few hundred years in length you’d be fairly mistaken. It actually stretches further back to before the birth of the universe!! The push towards attosecond laser pulses continues.

Another fantastical scale came from Prof Roy Glauber (2005 Prize winner) in a lecture about the “individuality of light quanta”. As an example, there are 1017 quanta in the light flux per second from a laser pointer. Prof. Glauber asked if we could imagine 1 single light quanta, and a analysed the “Gedanken” experiments of Youngs twin slits, and a disassociated diatomic molecule in terms of quantum states. If we get a large diffraction pattern from a regular solid state light source, then what type of pattern would we get from a single light quantum? The answer is “the exact same pattern”, showing that light behaves the same regardless of the amount of quanta present. This is where wave-particle duality comes into effect. In Youngs twin slit experiment, we know that light must share similar properties to particles, although this in no way means that each particle can travel through both slits! According to Prof Glauber, the light quanta are not equally divided in the first place. Also touched on was the sensitivity of the human eye, which is sensitive to 100 light quanta, although only 5-7 of these actually make it to the photoreceptors (the rest are absorbed to create the signal). He went on to talk about entanglement and entangled states, which is a quantum description of how even the quantum states of 2 or more spatially separated particles are linked so much, that you cannot descripe the properties of one without describing the properties of the other.

The great Prof Brian Josephson (1973 Prize winner) of Cambridge, UK held a strangely interesting lecture called “Which way for Physics”. I expected this to be a rather general discussion about what is left for Physics to explore and discover, but I ended up thinking rather critically about this lecture. He began with a discussion about cold fusion, and provided compelling evidence that this was already achieved but “propaganda against cold fusion” shot down the idea. I won’t go on about the cold fusion aspect, just like he didn’t but he gave us a website to pursue the evidence at http://www.lenr.org/, and after looking at it, there is some very interesting aspects. Many scientists reacted to low-energy nuclear reactions sceptically, due to irreproducibility of results (in normal fusion, temperatures and pressures resembling that found in starts are required). It still remains a highly controversial area
The remainder of his talk centred on self-organisation of the human physiology and a hint at possible explanation for natural selection. Personally I found this part the strangest, and a very unclear explanation as to the actual point. Perhaps I completely missed something by trying to understand his “biology aspect of the Standard Model” but his discussions of fractals (phenomena at many length scales) left me confused. Clear as muddy water as they say. He ended with an interesting statement which led me to at least consider his odd theories “Todays crazy ideas sometimes can be tomorrows greatest insight”. A completely true statement, or a statement of justification, I’ll let you decide. To be fair I heard during the week that the person who pioneered NMR technology when asked “what can it be used for” he answered “damn all”

BY far the most interesting talks to me today were Prof Douglas Osheroff (1996 Prize winner for discovering superfluidy in helium 3, he also served on the Columbia space shuttle disaster investigation panel) and Prof Gerardus t’Hooft (1999 Prize winner with his then supervisor and yesterdays speaker Prof Martinus Veltman). The entire point of Prof Osheroffs talk can be summarised in 1 sentence from the Laureates mouth “Nature doesn’t knock loudly, she whispers softly”. In essence this means looking with a fine tooth comb for the subtleties in your results, and not leave anything to chance. A fine example was the discovery of the microwave cosmic background (spoken about yesterday) where the group in question pointed their dish in a region where there was supposed to be no radiation source. Months were spent trying to remove the noise (they thought) and it wasn’t until someone looking for the radiation perused their data. This related directly to his experiences, making a discovery at 2.45am. His entire talk was a motivational speak for young researchers, and I hope he connected more with the entire audience like he did with me. Echoing his statements on climate change from Tuesday he said “Inventions must find a purpose, but if we find a need then the technology we require might not be obvious”. Classic case of an inverse problem! He also outlined research strategies that can increase the chances of a discovery, and for those interested in more tips to win a Physics prize they are

· Understand what your instrumentation is measuring
· Avoid too many commitments
· Gain perspective
· Failure is an invitation to try something new
· Look at unexplored regions of your work
· Beware of unexplained behaviour, don’t dismiss it
· Use available instrumentation where possible (“don’t re-invent the wheel, borrow it”)

We had the privilege of interviewing Prof Osheroff for Irish radio (see the pic at the bottom) , in which I thought he was somewhat controversial in some areas, especially about the commitments. He mentioned women in science, and the fact that priorities shift when children are involved. I guess he is talking honest here, he seems very down to earth in the interview and humbled about his discovery. A point that hit home was “Advances in science are seldom made by individuals alone” yet we didn’t hear many Laureates thank their co-workers for influence.

A fantastical voyage through the future (with terrible sound effects) was provided by Prof t’Hooft who began by indirectly contradicted Prof Osheroff saying “its fun to re-invent the wheel”. Contradiction between the different personalities seemed to be a common theme of the week. He proposed some big-hitting questions such as “What applications can be gained by knowing what constitutes a quark?”, “can we store information at the molecular level?” and “what can modern science do and what will always remain out of reach?”. He provided some food for thought in predicting the future by mentioning “knowing the laws of Physics, we know what can be done”. Thus stepwise advances of science can be improved upon by visionaries understanding of expert areas. He provided some optimism on the limit of modern technology saying that we are only starting the modern information age, and because of Moores law, we are decades away from the atomic scale limit (if this indeed is the limit). A few moral issues arose as he discussed robotics, and the fact that they are only as intelligent as we make them. “In principle” he continued, “we make machines to dig faster than us, compute faster than us and fly for us. Technically, in certain areas they already are more intelligent than us”. More moral issues arose in genetic manipulation, saying its completely possible to retrieve information from DNA and it is human nature to tamper with it. I wondered if he skipped the social implications on purpose or whether he just isn’t interested in them. Sometimes scientists seem to believe things should be done just because they can. Some more futuristic questions revolved around “when will humans colonise other planets”, “will we outlive our Earth” and “how long can we prolong human life span”. I felt this was all a bit fantastical, but great to hear the futuristic thoughts of this Laureate who was so full of ideas and energy that he ran well over time and was asked twice to finish up. I was getting hungry after all, and this doesn’t compete with colonising Mars.
The talks finish today, and signals the end of the conference program. Friday was a 3 hour boat journey to the Countess’ island of Mainau for a farewell party. A Bavarian evening was on, complete with Lederhosen-clad Bavarian band and traditional food! Few drinks and R&R was had by all.

Nobel Physics Laureates (day 4)

2008-07-07T09:56:00.001+01:00

On the cycle down to the Inselhalle today (where the conference is on), Martin told me that when his German supervisor was young, he attended the same conference we are attending 50 years ago. Only a slight difference, there was only 100 German students (compared to 550 internationals now) and the Nobel Laureates at the time who attended included greats like Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, and Neils Bohr. If you have ever done any bit of Physics, you would have heard at least one of these names. It’s fascinating to think we’re literally walking in the footsteps of greatness, with the privilege of attending such a conference. Right now we’ve moved on a generation, and many of the Laureates this week were taught by the “golden generation” of Modern Physics. For example, Prof Douglas Osheroff studied under Richard Feynman and Prof James Cronin studied under Enrico Fermi (and also Murray Gell-Mann, the man responsible for the subatomic particles called quarks)
Today’s talks opened with something a lot more interesting to me than the biology from yesterday. Actually come to think of it, the entire theme of today’s talks and discussions was a lot more related to the Physics that I studied as an undergraduate. 2 of the talks involved measuring cosmic effects, one being cosmic x-rays and the other being cosmic microwaves. Prof. Riccardo Giacconi (prize winner in 2002) discussed his discovery of cosmic X-rays by flying X-ray detectors on Skylab (a very early type of space station) in the 60’s and looking at the x-ray structures of the suns corona. He was also involved in analysing x-ray experiments flown on the x-ray observatory Einstein, Hubble space telescope, and proposed the latest probe CHANDRA in 1978 (launched in 1999). He gave a brief history of the technological development in x-ray astronomy since the 60’s, showing the increase in detector sensitivity to X-rays over time. In 1978 x-ray observations showed us the amazing crab nebula and its pulsar (a pulsar is a neutron star emitting jets of radio waves), binary stars in external galaxies, and indeed galaxy clusters themselves. It’s hard to believe these pictures were taken with an orbiting telescope millions of miles away, but then you have to consider that these objects can emit as much as 1000 more x-ray radiation than the sun itself. He also discussed the presence of dark matter (a type of matter which theoretically should exist, and comprises 23% of the entire universe!) by the collisions of 2 galaxies, and was also the first to find sources of X-rays which are now almost certain to contain black holes.
Did you know the age of the Universe is 13.7 million years old with an error of 1% (20 million years!) according to Big Bang theory? Prof George Smoot (Prize winner in 2006) had us all fascinated on a trip through the evolution of the universe and raised some very philosophical questions such as “why are galaxies different colours”, “why are there so many galaxies if there is only life on Earth (so far)” and “is there any order to the arrangement of the galaxies”? These far reaching equations led to the nature of his Prize, detecting the microwave background (some of the oldest stuff around as he modestly put it) using the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) launched by NASA in 1989. According to his theory, cosmic microwave background radiation is evidence the big bang occurred. When emitted, the Universe was 3000oC, and since then is a mere 2.7 K. Smoot discovered that this temperature varies ever so slightly from place to place in the Universe (it’s not homogenous). He also talked about a new probe called the Max Planck, which takes wedge shaped images of the universe and shows the temperature distribution. These distributions can be placed together to create a 3D map, of which Prof Smoot has some fascinating movies detailing. His enthusiasm for explanation of his work and thoughts caused him to stretch well over time, but nobody was complaining. Prof. James Cronin was absent from today’s meeting, which is a shame because I was looking forward to his talk on cosmic rays. As I mentioned already, he was educated by the likes of Enrico Fermi and Murray Gell-Mann, and helped in the discovery of the subatomic particle, the K-meson (also called a kaon). He also proved that by examining the decay of these particles, the reaction in a particle accelerator that caused it when run in reverse does not retrace the track of the original reaction. This shows that the interactions of particles may not be indifferent to time, and so symmetry is violated during weak decay. Not to worry, we had 2 particle physics lectures to look forward to.
Prof Martinus Veltman (Prize winner in 1999) treated us to a history lesson of high energy particle physics, something which I am happy for because since teaching it 3 years ago I haven’t seen a lot of it. From humble beginnings of the Irish priest Nicholas Callan producing 600,000 volts in Kildare in 1836, right up to the modern day LHC (large hadron collider) which will be powered up in CERN in August this year, he detailed all particle accelerators in between. Its great the way science is built on other science because Wilhelm Roentgen (the 1st Prize winner in 1901) used the high voltages geberated by Callan and and another German inventor for the discovery of X-rays, and Bequerel used high voltages to discover radioactivity. In chronological order (for anyone who is interested!) the accelerators are the Cockroft-Walton accelerator (Walton was from Carlow by the way, and won the Physics prize, the year escapes me though), in which accelerated protons smashed into Lithium atoms, the SLAC “Monster” (Stanford Linear accelerator on the San Andreas fault in the US), the cyclotron, the cosmotron, the synchrotron, the tevatron, storage rings (the first time actual beams were collided rather than particles into a target), and soon the LHC. Prof. David Gross (Prize winner in 2004) echoed the principle purpose of the LHC, to look for the elusive Higgs boson, which is a subatomic particle that theoretically should exist, and has been proven in many models but which has not yet been physically observed. This elusive particle plays a key role in the Standard Model of particle physics, providing as he called it the “missing link” into showing how elementary particles acquire properties such as mass. He told us also how it is a significant step in the search for a Grand Unified Theory, which seeks to unify 3 of the 4 fundamental forces, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force. This would still leave gravity to be explained (as of yet there is no particle that is responsible for gravity). Other particles are suspected to be found with the LHC such as strangelets, micro black holes, magnetic monopoles (a particle consisting of only a north or south pole!) and “supersymmetric particles”. This part of the talk confused me to no end, probably because my experience of it was little to none. Supersymmetry (SUSY) looks beyond the Standard Model of particle physics, and is an attempt to explain the energy transitions to create the particles, and to unify the theories. The graph shows the energy modelled energy required to unify the forces, and the energies created by the new LHC. Integrated into this is the murky term “string theory” of which I was almost completely lost, but its an attempt to explain the presence of dark matter and dark energy in the universe.
So all in all, there was a lot in Wednesdays lectures. Lots to note, and it’s extremely interesting to hear the research going on in particle physics. Lucky I had the quantum and modern physics modules or I would have been totally lost!
In the afternoon questions and answers session, Prof Giacconi also gave his thoughts on the future of astrophysics, including a fair amount of politics on securing funding, and communication of results, important stuff for any physicist. Prof. Gross was extremely both popular and busy, attracting by far the largest crowd to his questions and answers session (he had to host the crown in the lunch tent because there were so many!). He answered all kinds of general questions, from the origins of particle physics right up to present day, and discussed the powering up of the LHC in August 2008. I’m not entirely sure if all the students were there out of general interest, but I got talking to a few German lads working at the Max Planck institute, who reckoned lots of the PhD students there are responsible for analysing the Terabytes of data generated every day at particle accelerators. Things can only get worse when the LHC powers up! Socially it was fairly quiet in the evening, a beer and a massive ice cream was on the cards to cure the addlement my brain went through from the tough day of talks. We relaxed with a classical concert of Beethoven 7th symphony put on for us in the evening in the town theatre.

Tschuss!
Jim

Nobel Physics Laureates (day 3)

2008-07-02T12:05:00.004+01:00

Well a headache after a long night (see the pic for the stupidity) and 5 hours sleep isn’t the best way to start the day, but Petra (my German land lady) had a big breakfast ready. After making short work of it, it was up on the high Nellie bike, and a short cycle with Martin (German student also staying at the house).
The theme of yesterdays talks was on 2 things; structural biology and climate change. I think, being a person who studies Physics, I know which one I prefer. The morning session started with a talk from each of the 3 Prize winners from 1988, each sharing 1/3rd of the Chemistry Prize for unravelling how a membrane bound protein active in photosynthesis is built up. The 3 lecturers, Prof Johann Diesenhofer, Prof. Robert Huber and Prof. Hartmut Michel (I should say Prof. Dr., they’re very fussy about that title here....) gave talks, and to be completely honest, there was an awful lot that went completely over my head in terms of the biology. Try listening to words such as “pycobilisomes”, “eukaryotic proteasome” and “cytochrome oxidase” when you have never heard the words before and it doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence about the rest of the talk! To be fair, 30 minutes per lecture really isn’t enough for a crash course in the architecture of proteins, not to mind discussing to a Physics audience what they did to win the prize. Interesting about these talks was the technology they used to visualise these proteins, I only wished they talked more about the X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy and NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) rather than wading through the confusing jargon of biology.

In the afternoon there was a panel discussion about something that everybody can have an opinion about, climate change. Although not specifically climate change, the panel of 7 Laureates touched on all aspects affecting future generations such as energy sustainability, climate change, fuel reserves and renewable energy. This issue obviously affects almost everyone on the planet, so it was interesting to see the Laureates tackling this sensitive issue. Colours were pinned to the mast fairly quickly with each Laureate giving their personal understanding of the extent of global warming. The large gap appeared with Prof Giaever appearing to be a complete sceptic of the global warming idea. His thoughts were based on the issues about the fear caused in the general population about acid rain 30 years ago and the ozone hole 10 years ago. He went on to discuss that the average temperature is a terrible indicator because it varies so widely from place to place, and that it is indeed the temperature of the ocean that regulates the earths surface temperature (specific heat capacity of water is greater than that of air). All the other Laureates were united in stating that global warming is a man made effect, and “it may already be too late” as Prof Deisenhofer put it. They all agreed that serious effort needs to be made to act before it is too late to reverse the trend. On the subject of energy, all were united in saying that more people on the planet is the cause of the energy crisis (look at the cost of petrol!), and that the next 30 years is the most critical period in terms of energy generation. They discussed the future of nuclear power, and all agreed it was the most worthwhile endeavour in the short term. A switch to Thorium as a nuclear fuel was discussed, mainly because for the same energy output you get 1 ton waste with Th but 200 tons waste of Uranium. Its also more available and nuclear grade weapons can’t be made from it. Maybe Ireland could one day have its own reactor? More on this later.....Solar power energy it was decided needs to be harnessed better. If it was so good, then we would have the deserts of the world covered with solar panels, right? Nope, because apparently it takes 2-3 years for a solar cell to regain.

In conclusion to this section, if the scientists cannot agree what the problem is and the extent of it, then I personally can’t see how they can convince politicians and the general public as to a correct course of action, and the rules and regulations we are supposed to trust arguing scientists into making for us. Its a mixture of politics and science, neither of which is flawless, and I foresee tremendous complications in forcing an unnatural combination of both.
Myself Shane and Iris (the rest of the Irish contingent!) also got to interview Prof. Ivar Giaever (pronounced “gavour” so he kindly informed us) for the radio broadcast with freelance journalist Anna Nolan. Shane and Iris questioned him about his dissent from the other Laureates at the climate change debate earlier that day, and about the future of nuclear energy. We had prepared other questions, but changed them at the last minute because the climate change talk was so relative. He seemed to enjoy talking to us anyway (see the pic)!! In his view, the fear of the people is the only reason why we cannot have a nuclear reactor, and made a good argument for one. What makes it ok for a few guys to die in a mine in China digging coal destined for Ireland instead of producing our own energy on our own soil? Or even cheekier, buying energy from the UK which produces energy with nuclear power? Out of sight out of mind seems to be the way in Ireland......this Nobel winner basically told us to cop on and sort ourselves out.
Questions and answers sessions were arranged in the afternoon with the biology Laureates from earlier on in the day but I couldn’t rack my brain for a sensible question. I kept the head down......roll on astro and particle Physics!!
Tschuss

Nobel Physics Laureates (day 2)

2008-07-01T12:30:00.006+01:00

Tips to win the Nobel Prize in Physics: curiosity, competitiveness, creativity, stubbornness, self confidence, scepticism and patience. Yeah, well surely it can’t be that easy, but these are words of wisdom yesterday from the 1973 Nobel Physics prize winner, Prof. Ivar Giaever from Norway. His light-hearted talk today to the 500 young researchers about how he discovered superconductive tunnelling mad a lot of people jealous at what this man achieved, and was full of anecdotes and humour. Not something we expect from a Nobel Laureate, but it got more interesting. By his own admission, he was a terrible student, scamming his way into a job at GE (General Electric) in New York due to a mistake by the interviewer (the interviewer thought his 4.0 grade in Maths and Physics was top class because this is the highest grade in the US, in fact a 4.0 grade is a fail grade in Norway). He forgot to include words like “complete determination” into his list, which won this mechanical engineer the Nobel Physics prize. His many mantra such as “Ideas come to the prepared mind,” “if there are no experiments, there is no Physics” and “prove yourself wrong” are definitely applicable to any student who is studying any subject, and struck a chord with the audience, most of whom have had the joy (if they see it as so!) of teaching other students our understandings of Physics. It is hard not to admire the humbleness and modesty of this guy, which was even more evident in his 2 hour question and answers session in the afternoon. The questions were more general than project-specific, broad debate-raising questions about the future of Physics, how do we improve the numbers attending undergraduate courses, how to balance a family life with that of a budding scientist and what makes a successful research career. Prof. Givaer definitely is a man of much wisdom, spreading far outside the realm of superconductor energy gaps and tunnelling for which he is most famous. Another few words of wisdom came from the mouth of Prof. John Hall, winner of the 2005 prize when me discussed how to “inspire the young” with Physics. In his talk about the optical frequency comb he mentioned the health applications of his research such as precision spectroscopy, and isotope selection from the human breath. Apparently a smoker who had given up smoking 2 years previously still breathes out carbon monoxide, shown up by their system (it acts similar to mass spectroscopy if you know how that works).

In between lunch and the discussions, I got the opportunity to interview Prof. Peter Grunberg, the latest Physics Laureate (2007). In 1988 he discovered a physical effect known as Giant Magnetoresistance (GMR for short), probably unknown to most physicists, but an effect which is so important that its used in almost every electronic storage device in the world. It is for this reason we have the smaller hard drives, mp3 players and mobile phones that we take for granted so often.
Ever heard of a Bose Einstein condensate or the quantum Hall effect? Probably something you might have heard once or twice, but not at the front of your brain though. The Director of the Max-Planck Institutes here in Germany (there are 19 of them) and 1985 prize winner, Prof. Klaus von Klitzing gave a lecture about the quantum Hall effect and atom-thin sheets of carbon called graphene and rolled into a tube shape (now its called a nanotube), which he forsees being used as interconnects between layers in tiny circuits instead of conventional copper connections. 2 lectures involved the strange material known as a Bose Einstein condensate. Prof William Phillips (1997 winner, in the pic above) and Theodor Hanch (2005 winner) explained the workings of a BEC and what can be done with it (a BEC is a gas which is supercooled by a laser to about 200nK – its a different state of matter from the 3 we normally know where the atoms lose individuality!). An option with these BECs is to separate the atoms and place them onto an egg-box like surface (called a lattice), and not a mechanical normal lattice mind you, nope, that would be too easy, but a lattice made from interfering laser beams. So it represents an atom trap. Very interesting I hear you say. It represents a further step towards a “quantum computer,” which I won’t bore you about!
After a hard day it was time to relax with a few (>ahem<) pints at the get together organised at the conference centre (complete with cheesy German jazz band), followed by a 20 minute cycle home in total darkness around the lake.......lucky my German landlady wasn’t up! Tschuss! Anyone interested in watching the talks, you can watch them at http://nobellaureate.feedroom.com/?skin=showcase
Or simply look up http://www.lindau-nobel.de/

Nobel Physics Laureates day 1

2008-06-30T14:40:00.004+01:00

Regal opening ceremony, celebrity guests, royalty present....Nope its not the final of the European championship or the MTV music awards.....its the 58th meeting of the Nobel Physics Prize winners in Lindau island, Germany. Each of the celebrated guests here has won the Nobel Prize in Physics, joining the ranks of famous Physicists such as the first Nobel Physics prize winner Wilhelm Rontgen (the discoverer of x-rays) and indeed Albert Einstein (famous for many reasons including the extraordinary ability to pull funny faces). Set at the border between Germany, Switzerland and Austria at the beautiful lake Constance, the conference is dedicated to Physics this year, and we are set to receive 30 minute talks from each of the 27 of the Nobel Physics Laureates (past Prize winners) present at the conference. We also get the opportunity to interact with the Laureates, by 2 hour questions and answers sessions every day for 4 days. Theres also lots of events organised for the 500+ young researchers (such as the 3 from Ireland), and it all kicked off last night.

The opening ceremony yesterday was opened by Countess Sonja Bernadotte, President of the Nobel Council. We also were treated to music from a piano and a "theremin" (first time I heard of this too!), by a protogee of the inventor, Leon Theremin. Its a strange looking electonic instrument,apparently one of the first instruments, worked without even being touched!

There was also an initiation of new members to the Honorary Senate of the Foundation Lindau Nobelprize, and finally a lecture by Hans Rosling from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. He talked in great detail about the demographics of the world, and how there is almost no gap between developing and industrialised countries, as almost everybody thinks. He also showed that chimpanzees are just as intelligent as professors, but you had to have been there to understand that! His fascinating software about the state of the worlds money and health of the entire world, both individual countries and continents over the past 50 or 60 years has been bought by Google, and is now an online Google gadget (called “motion chart”). His in-depth analysis shows country GDP (gross domestic product) and such variables as child mortality rate and age, can all be shown for each country. His software can be seen at http://www.gapminder.org/

After that excellent talk, it was on the reception for the entire conference, where we had a few drinks and watched Germany take a bit of a beating at the European Cup final by Spain. The Irish contingent here were lucky enough to be invited to the American contingents party, not so bad since there were only 3 of us! Few drinks were had by all, and as usual a few business cards exchanged. Lucky it was only a short walk back to my German family house in the lightning storm after a few drinks.....swimming in the lake here (when its sunny) is highly recommended!

Day 2!

2008-02-20T11:46:00.002Z

I started off my morning by doing a Freefall experiment. This consisted of dropping a Ball Bearing from different heights and timing how long it takes for the ball to drop. This is used to measure gravity. I recorded the results and then graphed them on Excel.

My first day...

2008-02-18T15:47:00.003Z

I started my first day of work experience off with a tour of the University of Limerick's physics department. I was them introduced to Jonh. After a quick break for tea with Eamon & John i sat down to work. I spend morning de-soldering. This was a new experience to me as i'd never done it before. I then toook a break for lunch and after this i used Snap circuits, which is shown in the piture! This was also a new experience and a lot of fun! I then started my blog!

Overall it has been a day of new experiences and a lot of fun!

Day 1

2007-11-19T15:50:00.000Z

My first day in the physics department in UL was the
beginning of my second week in the university. Monday involved a tour of the building with John and after a cup of tea at 11 I went down to a lab with Eamonn where we did this experiment , measuring the speed at which a ball falls from varying heights(from 100mm to 1000mm) and then repeating with a ball of different mass and volume.

The results of the Free Fall were as follows :

I also sat in one of Joe Meehan''s 1st year lectures , which was on the coefficient of friction. It was quite interesting , everyone participated in doing the experiment. I photographed the Free Fall experiment and after that I started on this blog.

Wednesday and Thursday.

2007-06-29T09:51:00.000+01:00

Wednesday we did some work on the projects. After break we had a talk from George who gave us a talk on relativity. Then Ed talked about partical physics.We spent the rest of the afternoon after lunch working on our projects.

First thing Thursday we had our last lecture from Ed on partical physics. The rest of the day we spent finishing off our research projects in preparation for the presentation today (Friday)

Week two- Day Two. Projects!

2007-06-28T09:33:00.000+01:00

The vast majority of tuesday was spent on projects in the computer lab. Where we started researching proberly. After break we had a talks from Vincent on quantum mechanics and Mike on electrochemistry. We went down to the first year lab, saw loads of equipment and got our pictures taken after lunch.

Week two- Computers and Research

2007-06-26T09:31:00.000+01:00

The majority of Monday was spent in the computer lab. First thing we got a talk from Ian on Computational physics and then were brought up to the computer room to be introduced to matlab. Then began the research projects. After lunch Vincent came in to talk to three of us about quantum computing and cryptography and the rest continued with their projects.

Day Five- Sensors and Modern Physics.

2007-06-23T11:48:00.000+01:00

Friday Ed took us through his area of study- sensors. And we realised we actually know a bit more than we think when it comes to them, e.g. thermometers. We got five puzzles to do after break which were figuring out why things happen using our knowledge of physics. After lunch Ed took us through modern physics touching on relativity. For the final part of the day we worked on an experiment in a lab- photoelectric effect.

Day Four- Geometrical Optics & M.S.S.I.

2007-06-22T09:58:00.000+01:00

Thursday was based on light and optics. We started with a talk on geometrical optics from Ed and then went down to the lab to try figure out how a microscope works- at its basics. With two convex lenses, a light source, an object and screen. It didn’t work out. So after another talk and lunch we tried again. This time it did work. We split up into three groups and tried different experiments. Observing Newton’s rings, using a spectrometer to examine what gas was within the bulb, and examining different diffraction results because of different objects. Finally, we finished the day with a tour of Materials and Surface Science Institute., (M.S.S.I.).

Day Two and Three. Mechanics, Electronics and Semiconductors.

2007-06-21T10:02:00.000+01:00

Tuesday began with how you use power point and word. Our mechanics talk basically covered what’s in the leaving cert but just with more depth. The lab experiment was on Hooke’s Law and we also saw a demonstration of simple harmonic motion. Martin gave us a talk on renewable energy and biomedical physics. Ed finished the day off with a talk on mechanics in industry.

Wednesday was based around electronics and semiconductors. We got an electronics talk off Ed first thing in the morning and how semiconductors work and why off Vincent. We built a circuit on a bread board, many of us for the first time, in the early afternoon and soldered a circuit in the evening.

Day One of The Applied Physics Course, 2007

2007-06-18T16:35:00.000+01:00

Monday started with an introduction to the course, a talk from Ed and a quick go at concept mapping. Our tour of the library lasted the bones of an hour where we learned how to use all the resources there. After a talk with George on what physics actually is it was time for lunch. And having completed an experiment in the lab and analysed our results on excel it was time to go home.

Day Five - Finishing up and installing some new computers!

2007-06-07T21:19:00.001+01:00

My final day was less hectic than the others, everything was pretty much finished up and most of the day was spent on YouTube watching videos of Billy Corgan and Eric Clapton! For the last part of the day, it was my task to install three new computers and to re-assemble two others in the Physics Computer Lab.
At the end of the day,the head of the Department came to visit me and I was presented with a U.L. pen(in a snazzy case!)!
I had a wicked week and I would like to thank John for hanging out with me for the week, Maria for helping to organise what I was going to be doing, Jackie Kennedy for organising my week's work experience, and George Mullen for getting me into the University in the first place!

Day Four - Measuring gravity using a free-fall apparatus and plotting a graph in Microsoft Excel.

2007-05-31T16:56:00.000+01:00

Firstly, we decided on the experiment that I was going to do. We chose to do an experiment to measure gravity, g, using the free-fall method.

The apparatus was set up as shown. The experiment was first done with a large ball-bearing, and then with a smalller bearing. Basically, the bearing is held in place in the clamp at a known, measured distance, s. When you release the bearing, it falls and hits the trapdoor underneath. Everything is connected in a circuit to a timer. When the ball hits the trapdoor and the circuit is broken, the timer stops and the amount of time that it took, t, for the ball-bearing to land can be measured. This is done once more, and the lesser of the two is used. To find g, the formula 2[s/t2] is used. This is repeated at a number of different distances and an average value for gravity is found.
This was then repeated with the small ball-bearing.

The average value that I found for g was 9.6 m s-2, the true answer being 9.8 m s-2.

I then learned how to plot my results on Microsoft Excel, a skill that might come in very handy in college! This is a photo of my fully plotted and labelled graph, with distance on the Y axis and time on the X axis.

Day Three - Soldering my first circuit and installing an operating system on a computer!

2007-05-30T15:37:00.000+01:00

I started my day preparing to solder my L.D.R. circuit. We went back over what we did yesterday and and drew out a rough circuit diagram. I was then given all of the various components that I would be using. Once I knew what I was supposed to be doing, I started assembling all of the different parts onto the Vero board, a more complicated procedure than it sounds! After a couple of test runs(and quite a bit of time; it took a lot of thought!!), the circuit was ready to be soldered. I then began to solder all of the components into place.

However, when I had finished everything and supplied my little circuit with the 9V power supply that it needed, my L.E.D. wouldn't turn on when I blocked the L.D.R.! We discussed the problem and we guessed that there might have been a problem with either the L.E.D. or the transistor. It was very possible that I might just have supplied the L.E.D. with a little bit too much heat when I was soldering it onto the Vero board!! So, either the L.E.D. burned out or I had short-circuited it! We went back and took out the transistor. Then, the L.E.D. These were then replaced with new parts and the circuit was tried out again. It worked perfectly this time...finally! When the circuit was connected to a source of power(the battery), the L.E.D. stayed off because the L.D.R. was resisting the flow of electricity. When the L.D.R. was covered and no light could get through, the L.E.D. turned on because their was very little resistance in the circuit.

Here is photo of my fully functioning circuit!

For the last part of the day, we installed an operating system on a computer and also took a quick look inside. A new hard drive also had to be installed before re-booting. This is a photo of our newly installed software running successfully!!

Day Two - More Snap Circuits and learninig how to solder circuits to a Vero Board!

2007-05-29T16:20:00.000+01:00

I started off my second day by being shown some basic circuits and by being told how they were assembled. Then, I was shown how to de-solder from a Vero board. I was given a sample circuit and my task was to completely de-solder and dismantle it. To the right is a picture of all of the equipment that I was using.

Then, I had a chance to try out soldering! I soldered a few wires and one resistor onto a Vero board, which was really cool!To the left is a photo of the front of the Vero board after I had finished my soldering.

This is a close-up photo of the back of the Vero board with all of the soldering clearly visible(if you zoom in a bit!!).

After lunch, I was meant to be doing some work with a computer, installing an operating system and taking a look inside but instead, that was put off until Day Three and I did some more Snap Circuits.

My first experiment demonstrated the principles on which a street lamp works. The circuit was set up with a lightbulb and a L.D.R. When the L.D.R. was covered or brought into darkness, resistance would become very little and the lightbulb would turn on, just the same as how, once it gets dark at night, the street lamp turns on automatically. This is a photo of that circuit. I also did other small circuits involving light and a L.E.D. previously in order to prepare for tomorrow's proper circuit.

My next Snap Circuit was a little bit disappointing; after expecting to hear a montage of noises from a jungle monsoon or something, all that I got was tap-tap-tap.. This experiment was to create 'electronic rain'. Basically,the rain began when the switch was turned on and its speed could be varied with the resistor.

Luckily, my final experiment, 'Crazy Music IC', was a lot more exciting. This was a pretttty big circuit and was the most advanced that I have done. The adjustable resistor which can be seen at the top-left of the photo was set to the far-left position and the switch was turned on. This caused the relay's contacts to open and close quickly, shorting the music IC to the ground. This caused the sound level to fluctuate amusingly..!

I finished my day by doing some more work on my blog.

Day One - Snap Circuits and posting my Blog!

2007-05-28T16:28:00.000+01:00

I am a 5th Year L.C.V.P. student studying in St. Joseph's Secondary School in Tulla, Co. Clare. For my work experience, I have chosen to come to the Science Department in the University of Limerick. I will be spending a week here with the Physics and Chemistry technicians.

On my first day, I learned a little bit about circuits and a bit about managing and creating a blog site. As I couldn't arrive into the college until later than I expected, I didn't have that long a day. Firstly, I met the different people that I would be spending time with. I was then shown around the main Physics building and brought into various labs. For my last two hours, I did some work with Snap Circuits.

The first experiment that I set up was to create a Musical Doorbell which could be turned on and off with a switch.

My next experiment was a bit less basic and used quite a large circuit. The expreriment was to create a music and alarm combo. After turninig on the switch, the music and a siren could be heard together. By pressing the press switch, the siren changed to a fire engine sound. Also, covering the photoresistor would stop the music, while the siren would continue.

Another small circuit that I made was one to create a bomb sound. This was a simple circuit containing a switch, a speaker, a L.E.D. and a smaller integrated circuit. When the switch was turned on, a bomb sound was created and the L.E.D. lights flashed.

My final experiment was the most advanced. The aim of this experiment was to use a solar panel to make music. The circuit was set up as shown, with the meter, (M1), set to the LOW scale. The meter was used to show when the solar panel could supply enough current to operate the music. This was indicated by the reading being at seven or higher. When the switch is turned on, the music starts. When the music stopped, clapping my hands made it recommence.

For the last part of the day, I learned a little bit about how to set up and manage a blog site, and also how to create my own blogs from the University website.

Day 5

2007-05-04T14:30:00.000+01:00

My last day here was a little less intensive. More of a clean-up day. To start with, I finished my work on the I.S.C. Argo. Later I went to one of the labs for a demonstration of the laws of gravity-we used a vacuum pump to suck the air out of a glass tube. Inside the tube were a penny, and a feather. When the tube was turned upside down, before the vacuum was applied, the penny predictably fell much faster. The feather after all, was being resisted by air. After the vacuum was applied, air resistance didn't matter, and so the feather fell as fast as the penny. Weird stuff, physics...

Following that I cleaned up my blog a little-adding a few photos and text, before getting to work on today's post.

You probably can't read this picture, but basically it's the graph I constructed to display the results of my previous experiment on the acceleration of gravity on two objects of different mass. It charts Time(x) against Distance(y), and gives a value for gravity.The formula used was d=at^2/2. I also received a small tutorial on Paintshop Pro, which was used to display these graphs.

This is the glass tube used for penny/feather experiment. The clips at the bottom prevent air from getting once the vacuum has sucked it out.

Day Four

2007-05-03T15:28:00.000+01:00

Today was mostly spent on snap circuits. Some of the them were quite complicated, as you can see. Among the electrical contraptions I made were buzzers, lights, various noises and detectors, all triggered by an unlikely mechanism- water, touch, light, darkness, sound, even blowing at them. Construction was the hard part of course. Though the diagrams were simple enough to understand, it felt a bit like jenga, stacking pieces on top of each other. In the end, the projects look like miniature cities.
Later I looked at a piece of software concerning space launches. It contained a wealth of information about everything from the storage of liquid hydrogen, to a description of the power supply in Russian vessels.

This is one of the complicated circuits I made. It converts light, from a photo resistor, into noise.

This circuit includes a fan. With the introduction of a variable resistor, I can make it go a different speeds. With a slight change in construction, I can make it suck in, or blow out air. To the left is the fan stationary, and below that, is the fan at full speed.

To the left is the space simulator. You can see my carefully constructed craft, the I.S.C. Argo. The whole thing certainly gave me a lot more knowledge about spacecraft.

Day Three

2007-05-02T15:28:00.000+01:00

I started today working on circuits, proper ones with crocodile clips and voltage etc. I soldered my own resistors on, and tested the amount of resistance they offered, both alone, and together in the same circuit. Naturally I recorded the results.

Resistors are actually a much more complicated subject than you might think - they're colour coded, and require a certain amount of calculation to find out how much resistance to a current they will give. As well as using maths to calculate resistance, one can also use the more hands-on approach, which requires some apparatus, and a formula or two. Basically you hook up a current with resistors to a voltmeter and an ammeter, thus allowing you to measure the voltage and current present, and also, with the help of a formula, the resistance to the current.

This is most of the apparatus used, including meters, power Supply, circuits, etc.

After that I got to watching an operating system being installed, and I happen to be typing on the very computer where it was installed. So obviously it went grand.

That's the P.C. with the system installed.

Day Two

2007-05-01T15:14:00.000+01:00

Day two began with a little work on snap circuits. This involved the construction of building a Light Controlled Lamp.
The circuit to the left shows the bulb lighting as the photoresistor isn't blocked.

When the photoresistor is blocked the bulb turns off! This showed me that the resistance of the photoresistor decreases as the light increases.

Following that I went to work on a thorough experiment to measure acceleration due to gravity. For this, I used two metal spheres of differing sizes, and apparatus which allowed me to monitor how long it took for the spheres to hit the ground after being released in the air from a measured distance.

Later I used Microsoft Excel to display my results and plot them on a chart. As well as the distance the spheres were dropped from, I also measured the time it took for them to hit the ground three times, and got the average of each of these measurements. After a few calculations, my accuracy was confirmed when the answer I got for gravity proved very close to the correct figure of 9.8 m/s/s.

Day One

2007-04-30T14:32:00.000+01:00

This is my first day as a transition year student in the Physics Dept. at the University of Limerick. After a brief tour of the laboratories I got to work at soldering. This involved attaching wires and resistors to a circuit board by melting another metal around them. My skill/luck was evident upon monitoring the resistance of a current through the resistors. Desoldering was taking off the wires from the circuit board by basically melting the metal that held them together.
Among the other technical skills I learned today were the use of the digital camera- to take the photos obviously- and how to create and manage a blog site.

You can see here a couple of photos of my soldering. Below you can see the apparatus used. What looks like a giant pen is actually a searing hot instrument used to melt the metals, and it's accompanied by the sponge to clean it. On the left you can see the circuit board with various wires soldered on to it.