A girl in a physics world. : 1965 Imperial Alumni

Today in Blackett, home to the Physics Department at Imperial College, an alumni event was held where students who graduated in 1965 attended. One of the special guests was Sir Tom Kibble, a British theoretical physicist and senior investigator at Imperial College. His research interests are weighing the field of quantum field theory where he works on symmetry breaking, phase transitions and topological defects. Kibble is most famous for his co-discovery of the Higgs mechanism and the Higgs boson but fell short of a Nobel Prize which would have been shared with Peter Higgs.

You can find out more about Kibble here and Higgs here.

Alongside, Jess Wade, a third year PhD student in the Experimental Solid State Group at Imperial; Felicity McGrath, a final year PhD student who has just submitted her thesis and worked in the Quantum Optics and Laser Science Group at Imperial; and Jon Wood, a third year PhD student in the Plasma Physics Group, I escorted the alumni to various labs for their tours. The labs included the Main Workshop managed by Paul Brown, MAGPIE Z-Pinch and Cerberus (UK's largest University based laser system) where the head of the Plasma Physics Department, Professor Roland Smith leads these experiments (and Professor Sergey Lebedev also helped with the tours) and finally Professor Lesley Cohen's Solid State and Magnetism related lab. The Main Workshop is a suite of machines that underpin and enable the world leading research associated with the Department. MAGPIE Z-Pinch consists of 1.4 million amp, the largest open-access machine of it's kind in the world and Cerberus, as aforementioned is the UK's largest University based laser system. Within Professor Cohen's lab, the temperatures drop down to 2 K (-271 °C!) or up to 800°C! and magnetic fields up to 9 Tesla (where the Earth's magnetic field is only 25 µT!). Here, they explore new materials for energy efficient refrigeration and nanostructured magnets that capture magnetic monopole defects.

All in all, it was a great day and it was an absolute honour to meet the incredible people who were once students of Imperial just like myself - and the lecture theatre I sat in was the exact same (no refurbishments) as the one they sat in! This made me reminisce about my old school and how I helped to set up FutureFirst (as mentioned in a previous blog post), an alumni network at my old school which shall benefit the current students by allowing them to see where the students who went to their school ended up; acting as a form of inspiration for them to go on and do great things. I hope other undergraduates like myself and anyone for that matter may find a moment to visit their old school or university and share their experiences in order to inspire the next generation.

In the background getting ready for the event

Great welcome talk by the Head of the Physics Department at Imperial College, Jordan Nash

A quick tour of the Main Worshop

Having fun learning more about Lesley Cohen's amazing lab!

Exciting laser Physics with Professor Smith!

Find out more about the Imperial Physics Alumni event here.

Another event that occured today was the Summer Ball for undergraduates - here are some pictures of the Summer Ball preparations to enjoy.