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Hands up anyone who has heard of little-known 19th century
British physicist Hertha Ayrton? If you have not, you're not alone.
But Hertha is one of the forgotten female physicists who got a
mo-ment of glory when she had a room named after her at the opening
of the Institute of Physics new building in central London. The
main reception rooms in the new building were all named after
famous female physicists – Daphne Jackson, the first woman
professor of physics at a British uni-versity, Rosalind Franklin
whose X-ray crystallography pictures led to the discovery of the
struc-ture of DNA, the astronomer Caroline Herschel and Hertha
Ayrton who worked on electricity. "We at the Institute of Physics
are proud to take this opportunity to honour female physicists who
have been hidden by history, in a long overdue recognition of these
women's talents and their de-termination to succeed. The naming of
these new rooms will go some way to evening up the score as in our
existing building the rooms are all named after famous male
physicists," said Institute of Physics chief executive Julia King
before the ceremony. Science Minister Lord Sainsbury performed the
opening ceremony on Wednesday May 21st.
Among the guests there were descendants of these pioneering
women. Shirley Zangwill, the step granddaughter of Hertha who was
going to attend the opening ceremony commented: “I am sure that
Hertha would be delighted with this hon-our. Although she was the
first woman member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers she
was not allowed to join the prestigious Royal Society because she
was a married woman – even though she was the first woman to
present her research there in person. This is a fitting way to mark
her achievements and those of other women physicists.” When Lord
Sainsbury opened the Institute of Physics new building and launched
a programme to encourage more women to do physics he met a keen
potential female physicist, Clio Franklin. Clio is the physics-mad
great-niece of Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray pictures of DNA led
to the dis-covery of its structure 50 years ago this year. Clio
presented Lord Sainsbury with a biography of her great-aunt at the
opening ceremony. To emphasise the Institute’s commitment to women
physi-cists, the rooms in the building are named after famous
female physicists - including Rosalind Franklin. Speaking at the
launch, Lord Sainsbury said: "I am very pleased to be at the launch
of the Women in Physics programme. This will surely augment the
efforts of the Government in dealing with the under-representation
of women in science. If the UK is to retain its position as a
world-leader in science and engineering, we must take advantage of
all the country’s available talent and overcome the barriers that
impede women from entering and progressing in science careers." Dr
Wendy Kneissl, Women in Physics programme leader, said: "Starting
our Women in Physics programme with such a well-attended and
successful launch makes it easier for us to continue opening doors
not only on physics, but also on new collaborations and alliances
to tackle the low participation of women in physics."
North Eastern Branch of the Institute of Physics Issue 7 -
August 2003 Online: http://iop.ncl.ac.uk
Inside: “Annual General Meeting 2003” — “The Aerodynamics of
Sports Cars” — “The Millennium Bridge” — “The Physics Congress
2003” — “Annual Industrial”
The
new
slet
ter
for
Phy
sics
and
Phy
sici
sts
in t
he N
orth
Eas
t
Honouring little-known female physicists
'Hertha Ayrton' with her real-life step grand-daughter, Mrs
Shirley Zangwill in the Institute of Physics' new building. The
main reception
rooms are named in honour of women physicists including Hertha
Ayrton (1854-1923) who carried out pioneering work in
electronics.
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northern eastern branch of the institute of physics Page 2 :: NE
Branch Events
Crossing the Tyne has always chal-lenged people living on either
side of the river and Newcastle has there-fore been famous for its
bridges through the ages. The first quayside level bridge over the
Tyne was built by the Emperor Hadrian circa AD 122 and named Pons
Aelius in hon-our of the Emperor’s family name. It was a
substantial construction of timber supported by stone piers and
abutments on either side of the river and was used as a crossing
point until it was destroyed by fire in 1248. Its successor, the
medieval bridge which supported a commu-nity of shopkeepers, was
washed away by a disastrous flood in 1771, and replaced in 1781 by
a stone bridge which eventually, because of navigation problems due
to its low arches, was succeeded by the Swing Bridge in 1876.
In the meantime, with the advent of the steam age, Stephenson’s
High level Bridge had been opened in 1849, the first double-decker
bridge in the world to carry both a railway and roadway. The
familiar other high level bridges followed in suc-cessive decades,
but until 2001 there was no other low level bridge across the Tyne
from Newcastle to Gates-head, that is, until the appearance of the
Millennium Bridge In this introduction to an informa-tive,
interesting and well illustrated lecture, Mr Gordon Clarke had set
the scene for an intriguing account of the design, realisation and
con-struction of the latest Tyne bridge and the unique engineering
prob-lems and how they were overcome.
In 1996 Gateshead Council had en-tered the race for Millennium
Fund-ing and announced a competition for a new opening bridge to
link Gates-head with Newcastle. Eventually a short list of six had
been produced from the original 150 entries and the winning design
was that submitted by the Engineers, Gifford and Part-ners and the
Architects Wilkinson Eyre. There had been several engineering and
aesthetic criteria. It should not dominate the Tyne Bridge but
should complement it and the 6 other bridges over the river, and it
had to provide access to the new Baltic Art Gallery and to the
Music Centre. The river width at that point is 130m and access
should be from quayside level with no ramps other than a gentle1/20
slope and at spring tide the bridge should be 4.5m above the water
level with a head-room clearance of 25m when open to allow medium
sized boats to pass underneath. Although the architects had
initially suggested a conventional arch, this was soon replaced
with a unique tilting design based on two arches, the length of the
crossing being in-creased to a 170m curve which would achieve the
25m clearance. A wooden working 1/50 model with a combined walkway
and cycle way was investigated in a wind tunnel, and after
extensive testing, work started on the actual construction of the
arch and deck in Bolton. In the meantime the opening mechanism was
being manufactured in Shef-field. The bridge would be opened and
closed by underground hydrau-lic rams which would move 3m to raise
the deck the required 25m. The controls on each side would be
synchronous with a 25mm tolerance and 100 tones of push to open the
bridge and 400 tones of pull to keep it open.
Assembly and welding were carried out at the idle Amec Hadrian
Yard down river in Wallsend. The Arch and Deck, which came in 9 and
11 pieces respectively, were aligned with the arch orientated
upwards with cables hanging down to be attached to the deck.
Finally a strut was attached across which would be for lifting the
bridge. In October 2000, the second largest floating crane in the
world, the Asian Hercules II, was set to trans-port the Bridge up
river, but bad weather caused delays for two weeks until the neap
tide and perfect weather conditions on November 20th. The following
day it was low-ered into position with complete precision onto 16
mm bolts with only a 3 mm tolerance. In the following ten months
the me-chanical and electrical fittings were installed, the deck
stainless steel pedestrian walkway, cycle track and railings fitted
and the lighting sys-tems added. Other interesting facts mentioned
by Mr Clarke were that the bearings in the turning mecha-nisms
would have a 50 year life, that the specialist paint was guaranteed
for 30 years and that maintenance would be carried out by
specialist climbers who would ascend the stays and abseil down! The
bridge was opened to the public on September 17th 2001, with the
official opening by the Queen on May 7th 2002.
March: “The Millennium Bridge”
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northern eastern branch of the institute of physics Page 3 :: NE
Branch Events
He began by explaining the differ-ence between Formula 1 and Le
Mans Sports cars in terms of engine capacity, engine size, power
and wheels. However, the major differ-ence was that at Le Mans the
race lasted 24 hours compared to the relatively short Formula 1
races and it was this factor which affected the design. The
particular problems of Le Mans had a lot to do with the circuit
itself which involved long straight sec-tions followed by chicanes
requiring rapid deceleration, which seemingly drivers either love
or hate! More-over the Le Mans regulations re-quire sufficient
design flexibility to allow similar power/weight ratios with widely
different designs. In short, the problem was to find an optimum
configuration, with the flexibility that there should be a wide
range of cars of different shapes and sizes in the same race.
Essentially an engine is chosen, put in a car and the drag, thrust
and downward forces optimised to maxi-mise stability. On the other
hand, the purpose of the tyres is to assist axial acceleration and
braking, lat-eral acceleration – cornering and lane change, and
steering. They were fat not for technological rea-sons but to make
them last longer! The consequences of lack of down-ward forces at
the front of a car was dramatically demonstrated with a video-clip
of a flying, somersaulting Mercedes, in which the driver was
unhurt, but did suffer the indignity of being breathalysed by the
police
since the accident had occurred on a public road! It was
concluded that a slight turbulence could have caused this and other
similar incidents, and design teams set about to devise strategies
to prevent this. The use of “wings” had been long established but
these had disadvan-tages in respect of drag. A down-ward force
could also be achieved by reducing the air gap under the car and
the closer to the ground the bet-ter, since the removal of such
small air volume at high speed created a vacuum and the car was
essentially “sucked” downwards. A splitter at the front of the car
also produced a higher downward pressure and the introduction of
louvres on the front wheel arches also helped to push the front of
the car downwards. The design engineers eventually concluded that
there was no opti-mum configuration; design de-pended on
experience! Simulations optimising the chassis, engine,
transmission, aerodynamics, and tyres had shown that the Le Mans
Prototype 675, a small car, was ca-pable of beating a bigger car.
When watching a race on TV, what is striking is that because of
slip-streaming, little and big cars con-
stantly exchange positions and what the bigger car gains on the
straight sections, the smaller does on the curves. Dr Dominy then
described some of the techniques for studying car aero-dynamics.
The predominant tool was still the wind tunnel although, unlike an
aerofoil, the car is in con-tact with the ground, and this has to
be simulated by a conveyor belt travelling backwards at the same
speed as the wind. Results were presented of work carried out in
the Durham University Automotive Wind Tunnel, which combined with
Hot Wire Probing, to allow flow and velocity directions to be
determined. He concluded the presentation by discussing the latest
non-invasive technique - Particle Imagery Ve-locimetry. This uses
sheets of light produced by a Nd:Yag laser to look over two
successive planes of smoke particles, and produce a double
ex-posure on one image or two separate digital images. By carrying
out spatial autocorrelations, the airflow could then be mapped. The
interest generated by this well presented and entertaining lecture
was evidenced by the large audience and the number and range of
ques-tions at the end. In fact, the last of these came from the
ten-year-old son of the Branch Treasurer seeking advice and help
about how to stop his Scalectric cars coming off the track. A
potential aeronautical en-gineer - or, who knows, maybe even a
physicist!
A Joint Lecture with the IMechE - April 24th April: “The
Aerodynamics of Sports Cars”
We are all familiar with wind tunnel pictures and the
characteristic smoke flow trail patterns around aero-foils, but
such trails are somewhat deceptive when applied to a low speed
aerodynamical situation in the case of cars. Here we need to know
the forces and must devise the instrumentation to measure them. In
his lecture Dr Bob Dominy, of the School of Engineering, Durham
University, outlined the problems of matching design aspirations to
real situations on the racing track and described the varied
solutions adopted.
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northern eastern branch of the institute of physics Page 4 ::
Branch Events
“Comets: an illustrated Talk by Eva Hans, Director of the
Planetarium” The Annual Industrial Visit to the South Tyneside
Planetarium
It was dusk over South Shields and, as the last rays of the sun
began to fade, gradually you could make out pinpoints of light in
the sky. And then to the strains of the slow movement of the Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 21 in C, the sky blackened, the pin points grew
brighter and more nu-merous until the whole of the firma-ment was a
starlit canopy above, with the Milky Way making its hazy progress
across the sky. There was no pollution from street lights, not even
from the not too far away Sta-dium of Light; only a glorious
star-studded blackness. Of course that would never happen except in
the Planetarium at South Tyneside College, which was the venue for
the Branch Annual visit on May 15th!
EVENTS AT THE PLANETARIUM
Summer Holiday Opening
For the first time ever the Planetarium will be open during the
Summer Holidays with shows at 10.30 a.m. and 2.00 p.m. Twelve
different shows to entertain and educate the whole family are
available and you should contact the Plane-tarium for specific
details.
August 23rd–30th: National Astronomy Week
http://www.astronomyweek.org.uk
Making its closest approach for about 6000 years, Mars inspires
a Festival of Space. This will provide an opportunity to explore
both science fact and fiction through planetarium shows, space art,
creative writing and much more. Truly an event for all the family.
Satur-day 23rd and 30th August, 10.00 a.m. – 4.00 p.m.; Tuesday
August 26th to Friday August 29th, 9.00 a.m. – 5.00 p.m. For both
events: Adults £3.00; Children £1.50 (No children under 5 years
admitted. All children to be accompanied by an adult). For more
information please contact: The Planetarium, South Tyneside
College, St. George’s Avenue, South Shields, NE34 6ET T: 0191 427
3589 — E: [email protected]
The director, Eva Hans, began by orient-ing her audience with
reference to well known night sky formations – the con-stellations,
88 imagined groupings of bright stars on the celestial sphere that
are named after religious or mythological figures, animals, or
objects. Using a laser pencil she pointed out some old friends, and
beginning with perhaps the most familiar, the Plough or Big Dipper,
moved across the night sky pointing out the shapes of the Signs of
the Zodiac, which had remained more or less the same since the time
of our ancient ancestors. All civilisa-tions had seen something
important in these arbitrary arrangements of stars, which are light
years apart. The Eskimos had seen seals and the Aborigines of
Australia emus and kangaroos. All ancient civilisations had
marvelled at the night sky, and had explained it in terms of
heavenly beings manifesting their power in the night sky. There
were hunters, ser-pents, dragons up there; anything that could be
conjured up by the mind of people. However, some civilisations had
been truly scientific and had measured the positions of the stars,
notably the Egyptians and the Chinese, and they had devised
specialised instruments. For example, the Chinese had used a jade
“polo-mint” annulus, which when oriented correctly and held at arms
length, located the Pole Star. Eva dramatically traced out the
elliptical path of the variation of “north” due to the precession
of the earth, which meant that the pole star would not always be
Polaris. The main topic however was Comets, and with the appearance
of two later in the year, it was appropriate that some
consideration be given to the con-tribution made by comets to our
understanding of the Solar System based on the Copernican
heliocentric system. In the previous geocentric uni-verse, the
earth was stationary and motionless at the centre of several
con-centric, rotating transparent spheres. These spheres were
thought to bear (in order from the earth outward) the moon,
Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, with a finite
outermost sphere on which lay the so-called fixed stars. Comets had
been thought to be atmospheric phenomena until 1577, when the
Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe proved that they were in fact
celestial bodies. This raised problems of how they could possibly
move through the surface of the spheres, and this and the observed
retrograde motion of the planets had lead to the abandonment of the
heliocentric model. Newton subsequently confirmed that the motion
of comets was essentially the same as the planets except that they
moved in orbits of great ellipticity. Perhaps the most famous comet
of all was Halley’s Comet. By comparing the orbital data for
previous sitings he had predicted the return of the comet in 1759.
Earlier appearances of Halley’s comet have now been identified from
records dating back to the pre-Christian era, and it is famously
the bright comet which heralded the defeat of King Harold 1066. Its
most recent appear-ance was in 1986.
Continued on page 5
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northern eastern branch of the institute of physics Page 5 ::
Branch Events
Continued from page 4: But what is a comet? In fact it is a
“dirty snowball” con-glomerate of ice and dust! Many of the most
common elements are to be found there: hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen
and oxygen plus methane, ammonia, water and alcohol. It is possible
therefore that comets, with their organic content, could
be carriers of pre-requisite life material which upon impact
with a planet, say the Earth, could have “planted” the seeds of
life, although this is highly speculative. We would only know when
a probe could be sent to retrieve and analyse mate-rial from a
comet. The lecture concluded with a speeded up motion of the
heavens in which the moon moved across the sky in front of a
background of the constellations changing their positions until the
sky be-fore dawn was reached. There were several ques-tions about
the projector itself and its optics. It had been installed in the
college in 1963, was of American design and in fact, had been used
to train navigation to
the Apollo astronauts. And so again to the strains of the Elvira
Madigan theme, the night sky over South Shields slowly faded away
and a new day dawned. The lecture had been entertaining and
infor-mative and the demonstra-tions impressive and much
appreciated by the 32 mem-bers who attended.
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Mr John Brindley, Director Mem-bership
and e-services, was the IoP Headquarters’ speaker at the Branch
Annual General Meeting held on June 3rd in the Herschel Building at
Newcastle University. His talk began with a presentation of the
membership statistics. There were now about 38,000 members with an
average age of 31, indicative of the significant increase in the
numbers of young people. Undoubtedly this was due to the proactive
initiative schemes such as the direct targeting of students, Nexus,
the setting up of the Student Advisory Committee and the Young
Professionals’ Forum, a Website for Careers and several others.
About 30% of the membership are from the business sector, again due
to schemes such as the SME Club, Technical Briefings and the
increase in the enter-prise ethos. According to the FTSE index,
physicists were now in charge of 21% of the leading companies. The
Institute had received significant media coverage in recent months
and there had been many articles in the broadsheets and tabloids,
on Radio 4 and on ITV’s Television “News at Ten” about a variety of
events. Wher-ever possible, the message was “this is what physics
is about and if you want to do engineering – study Physics!” In
terms of the Institute’s own pub-lishing activities, the profits
from journals had increased to about £1M, but the Magazines were
down by £2M, due to a loss in advertising reve-nue. An interesting
development was that the Archival Proceedings of the
Physical Society from 1874 would soon be available on the WEB.
How-ever, the next (17th) edition of Kaye and Laby would be the
last and there-after it would only be available in electronic form.
The end of an era? “Advancing Physics” had continued to be highly
successful. The first A2 output had been in 2002. The numbers
starting physics at A/S level had in-creased and the pass rate had
also improved. Numbers taking A-level physics in a given cohort had
also typically increased from 20 to 35, but it would be too early
to claim a suc-cess story, but there was the potential for this. On
the other hand the 11-14 age group was still a cause for concern,
since 2/3 of these students were taught physics by a non-physicist,
and 1/3 by a teacher who did not even have A-level physics. The
average age of graduate physics A-level teachers was now about 50.
The Institute was therefore developing material for such middle
school teachers, and it was hoped that the pilot CD- and web- based
version would be available in 2004. £900K had been invested in the
project.
As reported in a recent Physics World, a Teacher Network which
was being Coordinated by Catherine Wilson, which ultimately would
involve part-time regional coordinators. The scheme was being
started in Scotland, and the £90k allocated would be matched by the
Scottish Executive. There was also a proposal to provide direct
help to Branches to make bigger contributions to the Institute,
based on the successful schemes already operat-ing in Ireland and
Scotland. Two to three representatives would work up to 100 days a
year to coordinate projects generated by the branches, in areas
such as school/teacher/university liai-son. They would act as a
single point of contact and be attached to a given branch for about
25 days a year. The pilot scheme would start shortly and suitably
qualified persons were being sought. Finally, John Brindley listed
some of the challenges facing the Institute. These included:-
enhancing the role of Women in Physics; raising the status of the
CPhys in the light of a possible CSci; increasing international
links, particularly with the U.S.A; rebuild-ing the magazines; and
strengthening the journals, including new titles and authors, such
as Cosmology and Physical Biology. The IoP therefore had continued
to improve its support for physicists and those working in physics
and hope-fully it would extend these activities in the coming
years.
Mr John Brindley and Dr Ben Rudden.
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northern eastern branch of the institute of physics
Page 6 :: Featured Articles The Physics Congress 2003
Fighting the fade
Just imagine if the colour in Van Gogh's Sunflowers had faded
away a few years after it was painted. Luck-ily this was not the
case, but newer more extreme works of art that are not exhibited
behind glass do run the risk of fading away before future
generations get to appreciate them. Speaking at the Institute of
Physics Congress at Heriot-Watt University on Monday 24th March,
researchers from the Centre for Fine Print Re-search (CFPR),
University of the West of England, will explain how
microphotography techniques are being used to safeguard this new
area of art. Inkjet printing allows images to be created on a much
bigger scale so artists can develop large prints, paper
engineering, bookworks and sculptural prints. The problem is that
these pieces are exposed to the atmos-phere and are therefore
susceptible to fading induced by harsh conditions such as changes
in humidity, light-ing conditions and pollutants. The optical
physicist John Dancer developed the earli-est form of
microphotography in Manchester in 1853. It was use to produced tiny
pictures and its first major application was sending secret
messages during the Franco-Prussian war. Today the technique
involves the use of a digital camera to take photographs through a
microscope. It is commonly used to view microscopic details in
areas such as precision engineering, forensic science and banknote
recognition. Now, a new applica-tion has arisen for the versatile
technique: it is being used, by artists, to measure how different
inks fade on different paper types. Carinna Parraman, a Research
Fellow and a member of the CFPR team, said: "Over the next few
years we hope to develop a catalogue that will tell artists that an
ink will last longer on paper A than on paper B." This knowledge
could help artists such as Richard Hamilton, whose Pop Art print
works can be viewed at the Tate Britain.
The images below show how cyan ink samples printed on enhanced
paper faded over a 12-month period. Top left shows a pigment-based
ink sample from March 2002; top right shows the same sample in
March 2003. Bottom left shows a dye-based ink sample in March 2002;
bottom right shows the same sample in March 2003.
The groundwork for the project began last year when the CFPR
team started a project with Hewlett Packard, through the Art and
Science Funding programme, and a Teaching Company Scheme with John
Purcell Paper. Parraman said: "We undertook experiments that
speeded up long-term exposure conditions so that over a short space
of time we could see how inks fade over long time periods. However,
we wanted to obtain a better understanding of how inks fade, to
look at the relationship between paper and ink over a much longer
period and to make a record of fading characteristics using
microphotography."
Flying high at the Institute of Physics Congress Eddie
Robertson, Grant McHenry and Sarah Berringer soared their way to
winning the “Great Paper Plane Flying Competition” held by the
Institute of Physics on Sunday 23rd of March. Entrants designed and
flew paper airplanes to see whose would stay in the air for the
longest as part of the Free Physics Fun Day at the Institute’s
annual Congress at Heriot-Watt University. Over 500 parents and
children also took part in other interactive science activities and
demon-strations such as exploring the solar system in a planetarium
and learning about meteorites.
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northern eastern branch of the institute of physics
Page 7 :: Featured Articles The Physics Congress 2003
Counter-terrorist spray New electrostatic spray apparatus which
could save lives after a terrorist attack involving chemical or
bio-logical weapons was to be revealed by Professor Law of the
University of Georgia, USA, to this year's Insti-tute of Physics
Congress. The apparatus can quickly and effectively decontaminate
the skin without produc-ing lots of contaminated waste. The
equipment is based on an electrostatic system that sprays a fine,
atomised mist carrying decontaminating compounds, such as an
antitoxins, disinfectants, or sanitizers, on to bare skin. The mist
penetrates every crevice, the tiny droplets have what Professor Law
de-scribed as "adequate residual aerodynamic energy to convey and
penetrate the electrified droplets into Fara-day-shielded regions."
In other words, the droplets get on to the skin of the armpit and
groin areas. Electrostatic spraying has been used in industry to
en-sure an even and complete coating of paint and col-oured powders
on manufactured goods, such as cars, and in agriculture to make
sure pest-control chemicals cover a crop. Professor Law and his
colleagues have previously developed improved electrostatic
spraying systems for industry and agriculture. In the current
in-ternational political climate, Law was motivated by the need to
make a contribution towards protecting people, both civilians and
the armed forces, exposed to biologi-cal and chemical weapons. The
apparatus takes the form of a walk-through booth with several
microprocessor-controlled nozzles. The nozzles are electrically
wired so that the droplets of decontaminant solution spraying out
are electrostati-cally charged and so stick to the skin of anyone
stand-ing in their path. Professor Law said 90 people an hour can
be sprayed head to foot with 100 millilitres each of
decontaminating spray. Only about 20 millilitres per spraying is
wasted. Tests on mannequin and human subjects with innocu-ous
bacteria put on their skin has demonstrated how effective the
portable apparatus is in covering the per-son with antibacterial
spray, said Professor Law. "Our apparatus was about fifty times
better at decontaminat-ing than other methods using uncharged
spray." "An important feature retained in our engineering de-sign
is mobility, the booth is not restricted to hospital use, and
provides relatively high human 'throughput' for protective
treatment," he added.
Photonic Crystals in 3-D Telecoms systems contain an awkward
mixture of op-tics and electronics. A purely optical system would
permit the very high data rates needed by the Internet, but at the
moment the switching and routing, as well as the "last mile" to the
customer, still depend on slower electronic components. Speaking at
the Institute of Physics Congress, Professor Robert Denning from
Ox-ford University was to explain how his novel holo-graphic
approach to making 3-dimensional photonics crystals could allow
optical components to be built that remove this bottleneck.
Professor Denning said: "By analogy with electronics the complex
optical systems required are called 'photonics', because they use
photons in place of elec-trons but, because it is much harder to
control the flow of light than an electrical current, their
development has been slow." The outlook has recently been
transformed by the invention of a new type of device, the photonic
crystal. This acts like an optical insulator, and allows the
components that handle optical data to be reduced to microscopic
sizes. They can then be densely pack-aged like electronic circuits
in a silicon chip. Unfortu-nately, the methods used for making
electronic chips are not well suited to these new devices. Current
manu-facturing techniques can only create devices featuring
2-dimensional photonic crystals. However Professor Denning and
Professor Turberfield, from the Chemistry and Physics Departments
in Oxford, have now found a simple way of using a laser to make the
perfectly regu-lar microscopic patterns that are required for
3-dimensional photonic crystals. Professor Denning said:
"2-dimensional photonic crys-tal structures are easier to make, but
diffraction at the edges of the holes that form the pattern leads
to the loss of some light. Although this can be made quite small,
it cannot be removed completely. In a 3-dimensional structure,
confinement of the light is omnidirectional, so no losses can
occur. Defining waveguides and cavi-ties within a 3-dimensional
structure makes much larger component densities possible, just like
the advantage of a multilayer circuitboard over a single layer
one." The team uses holographic lithography to make the
3-dimensional photonic crystals. “Holograms are usually made by
making two beams of light interfere with each other and then
storing the resultant intensity pattern via a light induced
chemical change in some medium, pho-tographic film for example. The
holographic lithogra-phy is just a fancy name for defining the
pattern of the photonic crystal via the intensity variations caused
when four laser beams interfere. The trick is to find the right
chemical reactions to make this possible."
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Ever wondered why the sound of a fire engine’s siren changes as
it whizzes past you? The winners of the Paperclip Phys-ics
competition could show you exactly why it does this with their
presentation ‘The Doppler Effect’. The all-girl team from Hull High
School used slinky springs, musical instruments and even themselves
as props to demonstrate this effect in under five minutes! Out of
13 teams in the final, the judges gave Hull High School first
prize, and each team member received a palm top computer.
The winning presentation demonstrated how the Doppler Effect
works with both sound and light. First off, Hannah Caley used
musical instruments to show that sounds are produced by vibrating
ob-jects. Lilly-Ann Tang then pretended her team mates were air
particles, to show how the vibrating objects make sound waves. By
attaching a slinky spring each to the front and back of a toy
truck, the team made a simple model of a fire engine with its siren
on – the slinky springs represented the sound waves made by
the siren. Heather McKay pushed the fire engine forward to show
why we hear the pitch change when a fire engine drives past. To
round off the presentation, Melanie Arrow described two very
different effects. The Doppler Effect in light, known as ‘red
shift’, lets us know about move-ments of stars and galaxies.
Lastly, she described the lesser known ‘Doppelar Effect’ which
states that “the faster nonsense comes at you, the more
believable
it sounds”. Luckily, the team did not demonstrate this effect in
their talk!
Left to right: Gemma, Melanie, Heather, Hannah, Lilly-Ann.
northern eastern branch of the institute of physics Page 8 ::
Institute of Physics News
Heather Reid presents Institute of Physics award to local
teacher
Local teacher Martin Robertson, principal teacher of physics at
Elgin Academy, Morayshire, has been awarded an Institute of Physics
Teachers’ Award 2003, recognising his outstanding teach-ing. Martin
is one of four teachers to receive the award this year, and the
only recipient from Scotland. Heather Reid, BBC Scotland weather
presenter and former chair of the Institute of Physics in Scotland,
presented the award at the Stirling Physics Teaching Meeting, held
at Stirling University on 5th June 2003. Every year the Institute
recognises and rewards the work of out-standing teachers who have
excited young people in physics through their exceptional practice
in the classroom. Martin has inspired pupils and teachers alike at
Elgin Acad-emy for over 30 years with his captivating style of
teaching physics, motivating his students to take sixth year
physics, study physics-related degrees at university, or to teach
physics themselves. One student said that his en-thusiasm and
humour are what makes his lessons so much fun. “The Institute
recognises the significant impact of teachers who go the extra mile
because of the love of their subject. We are proud to reward
physics teachers for their inspirational teaching and active
involvement in their school life,” said Chris Shepherd, Teacher
Support Manager at the Institute.
Hull High School team wins Paperclip Physics Institute of
Physics wel-comes Government’s new
approach regarding women and technology
The Institute of Physics welcomes in principle the new approach
from the Gov-ernment to increase funds for women in science and
technology - but recom-mends other forms of action also need to be
taken. Dr Wendy Kneissl, leader of the Institute of Physics Women
In Physics pro-gramme, said the Govern-ment’s new integrated
initia-tive to tackle the problem of the under-representation of
women in science was “a positive start”. “In particular, in physics
we are seeing less boys and girls take the subject, and most
children who do study it are boys,” says Dr Kneissl. “Women
represent only 20 per cent of our com-munity at best and this issue
must be addressed.”
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northern eastern branch of the institute of physics Page 9 ::
Regional News
Praise for Newcastle University’s technology transfer record
Newcastle University has been named as one of the UK's top
universities for 'technology transfer' – using its world-class
research facilities to benefit businesses and the econ-omy. A
survey revealed that the University’s £5 million sale of its shares
in its spin-out company, Novocastra Laborato-ries, last year,
represented the most profitable equity sell-off by any university
in the country. The research, by Nottingham University Business
School, identified four UK universities that were excelling at
tech-nology transfer. They were Newcastle, Edinburgh, Loughborough
and Strathclyde. The interim report, published this week, details
UK uni-versity technology transfer activities in 2002 but does not
name individual universities. However, the four leading
universities which served as case studies were named in an article
in the Times Higher Education Supplement on Fri-day, 13th June. The
full report is expected to be published in September and is being
modelled on the North American Association of University Technology
Managers' survey, which has been running for 11 years. Novocastra
Laboratories, which was taken over last July by Vision BioSystems,
was set up by Wilson Horne, a former professor of pathology at
Newcastle University, and his colleagues. It quickly became a
world-leading manufacturer of antibodies, probes and kits used
primarily in cancer detection and characterisation. Last year five
spin-out companies were formed at Newcas-tle University, which has
set itself the target of increasing the number to seven to ten per
year. Dr Douglas Robertson, Director of Business Development at the
university, said today: “This just goes to show how important
research-intensive universities like Newcastle are to the UK and
regional economies. “Spinning out companies from our powerful
research base is helping to create sustainable jobs and wealth. The
com-panies we are setting up today could be the Novocastras of
tomorrow.” “We also work with existing companies to help them
im-prove their products and processes. We pride ourselves on being
open for business, quite literally.”
Volcanic eruptions — 14/5 Dr Gillian Foulger (Durham Geological
Sciences) led a team of international scientists to discover the
facts about volcanic eruptions. Her experi-ments in Iceland showed
that volcanic eruptions did not come from the Earth's core, as it
had been widely thought, but were in fact only skin-deep. Reported
in The Journal. Freak conditions force last-minute cancellation of
the Boat Race — 16/5 Freak conditions forced the 2003 Northumbrian
Water University Boat Race to be abandoned , to the immense
disappointment of the rowers and the thousands of spectators who
had gathered on the Gateshead and Newcastle Quaysides to witness
the annual clash of oars between Newcastle and Durham Universities.
The race was called off at the eleventh hour after the umpires
declared the course unsafe, saying that the conditions on the water
between the Metro rail bridge and the Swing Bridge were
'appalling', with three-to-four-feet high waves. Academia Europaea
–23/5 Professor F. Richard Stephenson (Physics) has been invited to
become a member of Academia Europaea - an organisation of eminent
individual scholars from across the continent of Europe. The
invitation recognises Professor Stephenson's dis-tinctive work on
historical astronomy and the study of eclipses, comets, the
features of the sun and supernovae. Disappointment over culture bid
— 4/6 After hearing of Liverpool's success in the bid to become the
UK's Capital of Culture in 2008, the Vice-Chancellor of Durham
University, Sir Ken-neth Calman, said: "This is hugely
disappointing, of course, but we should not let it become a
set-back. Thousands of people throughout the North East have worked
extremely hard to prepare and support the bid. On behalf of the
University I thank them for their superb efforts. We must all now
find the way to carry on from where we are. The region may have
missed out on the title but we still have the teamwork."
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northern eastern branch of the institute of physics Page 10 ::
Regional News
Mr Patten is a former Chairman of the Conservative Party and was
Governor of Hong Kong during the handover of the colony by the UK
to China. A Balliol College graduate, he met his wife Lavender at
Oxford. One of his daughters, Kate, is a graduate of Newcastle
University.
A steam turbo-generator, built by Parsons, is being donated from
Northumbria's School of Engineering and Technology, along with all
its documentation such as service records, energy outputs and
costings. Some of the records show that Rutherford College of
Technology - which merged to become part of Newcastle Polytechnic,
now Northumbria University - considered the purchase of three
turbines in 1938 but due to the war were unable to proceed until
1946 when the decision to buy from Parsons was made. Records also
show how the College tried to sell the electricity produced to the
Newcastle Electricity Company. David Gregg, who studied Mechanical
Engineering at Rutherford, is now a senior lecturer in Mechanical
Engineering and has used the turbine both as a student
and as a lecturer for 40 years. He said: "I worked with this
turbine as a student and spent many years using it to teach my own
students. I was devastated when I heard this might have to be cut
up for scrap but it's fantastic news that it's being put on public
display as a piece of classic engineering from the 1950s. It will
bring back memories for many people who worked at Parsons and
hopefully make the city's industrial history more accessible." The
turbine was bought by the College on 4th May 1954 and has been used
to teach generations of students about electricity production.
Parsons was one of the few companies at the time to produce the
gears for this type of turbine which essentially produces
electricity as a power station but on
a much smaller scale. In the 1950s they were exported all over
the world. John Clayson, Keeper of Science & Industry for Tyne
& Wear Museums, said: "This acquisition is great for Discovery
Museum because it shows some important features of Parsons' turbine
technology. Of particular interest is the geared drive, because
Charles Parsons invented a new manufacturing system to make the
extremely accurate gearing needed for turbine systems. None of our
existing exhibits have this feature. "Although we are not able to
put this new exhibit on display immediately, it will be looked
after at the Regional Museums Store, a brand new facility we share
with Beamish. Visitors will be able to see it on regular open days,
and it will be available in future for displays and exhibitions at
the Discovery Museum."
Turbine generates its own piece of history
Newcastle and Oxford to share Chancellor
On the 17th of March, Newcastle University's Chancellor,
Christopher Patten, was named as the new Chancellor of Oxford
University. He will hold both posts simultaneously, forging a
sym-bolic link between the two universities. Mr Patten, who is
European Commissioner for External Affairs, has been Chancellor of
Newcastle University since 1999.
He was elected to the Oxford Chancellorship against competition
from three other candidates: the senior judge Lord Bingham, the
former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Lord
Neill and the comedian and media personality, Sandy Toksvig. More
than 8,000 Oxford graduates and academics voted. In the final round
of counting Mr Patten received 4,203 votes, 1,720 more than his
nearest rival, Lord Bingham.
Mr Patten, 58, who is likely to be installed as Chancellor of
Oxford at a ceremony this summer, replaces former Home Secretary
Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, who died in January. The Chancellorship
of a university is largely a ceremonial post but car-ries great
status.
Olivia Grant, Chairman of the Council of Newcastle University,
said of Mr Patten's appointment : 'We are absolutely delighted on
his behalf. His appointment provides an excellent opportunity for
the needs of the University sector to be represented at the highest
level, and we are very, very pleased for him.'
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northern eastern branch of the institute of physics Page 11 ::
Editorial
Investigation launched into benefits and problems of
nanotechnology
The Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering have been
commissioned by the UK Government to investigate the potential
benefits and possible problems associated with nanotech-nology and
nanoscience, it was announced on the 11th of June. The independent
study will include an assessment of how this emerging area of
sci-ence, engineering and technology should be regu-lated as it
develops. The study will be chaired by Professor Ann Dowling CBE
FRS FREng and begins with a call to stakeholders to express their
hopes and con-cerns about the new technology. The issues raised
will be used to decide on the breadth of the pro-ject’s brief. The
working group, which Professor Dowling will assemble, will consult
the public and other stakeholders during the project. Professor
Dowling said: “Some unease about nanotechnology was expressed
earlier this year with suggestions that plagues of self-replicating
nano-bots could turn the world into ”grey goo”. A key role of the
project will be to separate the hype and hypothetical from the
reality. The working group will determine where research is now,
where it might be in 10 or 20 years’ time, and where it could be
further into the future”. The study will identify the
environmental, health and safety, ethical and societal
implications, and uncertainties that may arise from the use of the
technology both at present and in the future. It will also identify
areas where additional regula-tion needs to be considered. It has
been commis-sioned by the Government’s Office of Science and
Technology (OST). Lord May of Oxford, President of the Royal
Soci-ety, said: “The public need to feel that their con-cerns and
interests are properly being taken into account when it comes to
deciding how nanotech-nology, which is still a relatively young
disci-pline, develops. This is why our study will con-sult and
engage with key interest groups, such as the environmental lobby,
and the public. We want to supply the Government with an
independent, authoritative, representative, and above all
fact-based, report on nanotechnology and the environ-mental, health
and ethical issues that might stem from it.”
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/nanotechnology/
Volta was electrified and Ar-chimedes was buoyant at the
thought. Ampere was worried he wasn't up on current research. Ohm
resisted the idea at first. Boyle said he was under too much
pressure. Hertz promised that in the future he will attend with
greater frequency.
Pierre and Marie Curie were radiating enthusiasm. Born thought
the probability of enjoying himself is pretty high. Einstein
thought it would be relatively easy to attend. Heisenberg was
uncertain whether he could make it. Schrodinger had to take his cat
to the vet, or did he?
After Receiving an Invitation to a Physicists' Ball:
Q: What's the difference between an auto mechanic and a quantum
mechanic?
A: The quantum mechanic can get the car inside the garage
without opening the door.
Editorial I hope you will enjoy this issue of our newsletter for
two reasons. First of all this is the second 12-page issue which is
a strong indication of the branch’s willingness to communi-cate all
the latest branch and regional news with its mem-bers. The second
reason is that this is the last issue of the second academic season
since the newsletter started. As such, I would like to dedicate
this issue to everyone who helped by writing event reviews and
articles. May I also take this opportunity to thank Dr Mike Smith
who has proof-read all the newsletters so far! Once again, if you
would like to contribute by writing an arti-cle please send it via
email: [email protected].
Enjoy the rest of the summer!
Savvas Papagiannidis
Physics Humour!
Q: What's the difference between Max Factor and Quantum
Theorist?
A: Max Factor has models that work.
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northern eastern branch of the institute of physics
NE Branch Contact Details: Dr. Lidija Siller (Secretary)
Telephone: 0191 222 7287
Email: [email protected]
Physics, Herschel Building University of Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU
Feynman goes
on-line at Vega
If a picture says a thousand words then videos of physicists
such as Richard Feynman, Walter Kohn and Joseph Rotblat explaining
their work should be worth an encyclopedia or two. Thanks to
increasing bandwidth and new digital technology, you can now watch
all these and more directly over the Internet, and all free. The
Vega Science Trust is a charity whose remit is to provide a
broadcast plat-form where scientists can communicate directly with
the public on issues that are important to them. The chan-nel's
programmes cover all aspects of science at every level, from the
UK's first as-tronaut, Helen Sharman, ex-ploring life in space with
primary school children, to research level debates such as "Bernal
and the social func-tion of science". The pro-grammes were
originally recorded to the BBC's stringent broadcast standards, and
have been compressed for viewing on the Web. The site features a
growing collection of archive recordings of scientists who have
changed the world we live in. These provide priceless recollection
– what was it like to work on the bomb project? Hear Joseph Rotblat
discuss it. What was Fermi really like? Millie Dresselhaus talks
about her experiences working in his group. The online lectures and
mas-terclasses provide a great ‘leg-up’ into new fields, such as
the science of MRI or risk analysis of BSE. Discussion programmes
provide intelligent and rea-soned debate of important contemporary
scientific issues including GM Foods, the science of cloning and
new developments in artificial intelligence. "Our aim is to bridge
the gap that is often perceived between science and society", says
Sir Harry Kroto,
Nobel prize-winning founder of the Trust. "The Trust aims to
provide well-informed views on tech-nical issues, and so make
science more accessible and understandable to the widest possible
range of target audiences. In areas of public concern we want to
help ensure the best possible advice is available and so ensure
that decisions may be made judi-ciously". Thanks to the generosity
of the Feynman family and Auckland university, the Trust has
recently made available a series of Richard Feynman lectures filmed
in New Zealand as part of the Douglas Robb memorial lecture series.
Although the recording is of modest technical quality the
exceptional personal style and unique delivery shine through.
Feynman
gives not just a lesson in basic physics but also a deep insight
into the scientific mind of a 20th century genius analysing the
approach of the 17th century genius Newton. Vega is a charity and
the programmes are all provided free. There is no commercial
adver-tising on the site and the software you need to play the
videos is
also free and can be downloaded from the Web (the "RealPlayer",
as used on the BBC Website). The programmes are viewable from a
home modem, al-though the quality improves if you are using a
better connection. "Internet broadcasting has several advantages
over conventional television", said Dr Chris Ewels, who developed
the Web site. "For example, unlike con-ventional broadcasting, we
are not restricted to fixed schedules. Instead you select the
programme you want and it plays immediately on your computer."
"Vega's aim is to provide a service we feel is impor-tant", adds
Sir Harry. "We’re one of the few success-ful Internet sites in that
we're actually planning not to make a profit!"
The programmes can be viewed by visiting the Website
http://www.vega.org.uk/