Seeing Jim Al-Khalili at the Royal Society!

On the 27th of January I attended a lecture given by the one and only Jim Al-Khalili OBE - author, broadcaster and theoretical physicist - at the Royal Society! I'd seen a few of his documentaries in one of my A level physics classes and then watched a few more after that where the most recent one I watched was his series called The Secrets of Quantum Physics on BBC FOUR, which I thought was great! So, Jim is a (physics) TV celebrity! Seeing him at the Royal Society, therefore, was an opportunity I could not miss! Find out more about Jim here and here.

Jim's lecture carried on the theme of the International Year of Light (IYL 2015). IYL was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in 2013 and since then, 2015 has been filled with events promoting the role of light in the modern world! The first studies of optics were done 1000 years ago and so it was only right to finally celebrate light!!

After a morning at uni doing work on the Pop-O-Matic - check out previous blog posts for more details - I made my way to the Royal Society. I arrived there to see my old Physics teacher and his group of A level students! It was lovely to see some students I had given a talk to a few months ago and the fact that their teacher was taking their students outside of the classroom and broadening their science knowledge!

We walked through the grand entrance of the Royal Society where we were met by a beautifully lit Royal Society, which I'm sure was done in celebration of the International Year of Light. We walked into the lecture venue to find lots and lots of people waiting for Al-Khalili to spread some love for light. We took our seats and the excitement was unbearable - I couldn't believe I was going to see Jim Al-Khalili, the person on TV spreading love for physics! He was introduced to the stage and as soon as he walked up onto the stage I was literally thinking OMG! Am I really seeing Jim right now?! Totally wanted to fangirl! ;)

He began his talk titled, A brief history of light: What the medieval world knew about optics, where he began to introduce the audience to the basics of light, what it is and how we use it in our modern lives. He then began the story of medieval optics, which began with the 'Golden Age of Arabic Science' where the language of science was Arabic. His talk focussed on the work of Ibn Al-Haytham, the 'father of modern optics'. Ibn Al-Haytham made great contributions to the understanding of vision, optics and light. His greatest achievement/work was done during a period of his life where he was under house arrest! After telling the Fatimid caliph in Egypt that he could provide a solution that would regulate the Nile flooding and then later, after he had second thoughts  he realised this could not be possible without the best builders. Instead, to avoid the caliph's wrath and possible execution, he faked madness. As a result, he escaped executed and was put under house arrest. It is reported that light shined into his dark room from a tiny pinhole which projected an image of the outside scenery into his room! Essentially the first pin hole camera! After repeat measurements he concluded that light travelled in straight lines and that vision comes about through light from a light source being reflected off objects and entering our eyes. It was a very cool story and in some ways inspirational too! I had never heard of Ibn Al-Haytham before so it was nice to travel back in time and see medieval science in action through pictures shown on Jim's slides. 

Check out a similar talk here (Royal Society, Michael Faraday Prize Lecture). And learn more about Ibn Al-Haythan here.

Jim's talk was topped off with a SPECTACULAR LASER LIGHT SHOW! It was honeslty the coolest laser light shows I've ever seen - the London Eye in red was in the background, smoke filled the London air in order to show off the pretty colours of the lasers. The lasers also illuminated a local monument which was sweet! #Awesomeness (see video below)

Check out the pictures and videos from the day below:

#IYL

#CelebratingLight

Can't believe it's actually Jim Al-Khalili!! #Awesomeness

Jim Al-Khalili's new paper on medieval science

Sir Isaac Newton

Physics Undergrad Research Conference

Just before I went for Christmas break (2015) I received an email from Imperial Physoc (Imperial College's Physics Society) about a Physics Undergrad Research Conference. The conference will showcase the research work, internships and other cool things that undergrads had been up to. The event would be held at Imperial College and co-hosted by Event Horizon (UCL's Physics Society). As soon as I heard about this I was in two minds about it: one half of me wanted to say no because I didn't think I had anything good to show but the other half of me wanted to show undergrads that you don't have to do a research project to benefit from summer work and broaden your network of connections, you can achieve this by doing an Outreach project too. I wanted to showcase the Pop-O-Matic project (see previous blog posts to learn more about it or check out the Facebook page here and my Twitter @MBerboucha with the hashtag #Pop-O-Matic) at the event and show the undergrads that would be attending that I've gained lots of skills and connections doing an Outreach project which is something they probably haven't considered before. So I plucked the courage to apply by telling myself that I have nothing to lose. Then one day, when I had completely forgotten I had applied I received an email that congratulated me for gaining a place to talk at the conference! I'm not going to lie I was excited but had huge butterflies in my stomach! So then I began planning my talk and thought...

...but I didn't want to do a simple presentation - I didn't think this would showcase the project properly and I wanted to do it in video form just to jazz the conference up a bit. So I made a start on my video and added lots of pictures and videos I took of making the Pop-O-Matic from previous blog posts and tweets and compiled them into a short video summarising the work I did, the skills I learnt and the people I met. 

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Two weeks before the conference my new shiny lasers for the Pop-O-Matic were ordered and arrived! I fitted one of the lasers into the shiny new Pop-O-Matic casing I shall be using at the conference and it looked AWESOME!! The lasers were pretty #MIGHTY !

A week before the conference the interlock system was set up and fitted into the Pop-O-Matic. The interlock system for the pop-o-matic involved using two microswitches where when the lids are taken off the laser switches off. So in case of the unfortunate case where the Pop-O-Matic is dropped and the lids come off the laser can switch off and save the potential victims from eye damage. 

Here's a video of me soldering the interlock system together:

After that, I had to power up the laser so below I am connecting the laser to a power supply:

Then I had to attach the interlock system as well as the laser to the central aluminium/optical rail:

And ta-dah! It was time for the laser to be aligned and also time for its first test run!

Slo-mo balloon pop!

Assembling it all together

Second test run

After this a second test run was done and the Pop-O-Matic was ready for its first reveal at the Imperial College and UCL Physics Undergraduate Conference!! I was so excited to show off the new Pop-O-Matic which six months ago was just a drawing in my lab book!!

Whilst balancing lectures and building the Pop-O-Matic I squeezed in time to make a poster and slides for my talk at the conference. After lots and lots of rehearsing it was finally the big day! I had crazy butterflies and was super nervous!

I went and got the shiny, new Pop-O-Matic from the lab and brought it on a trolley to where I would be for my poster session and I set it up. The first comment I heard was from an undergrad who called the Pop-O-Matic a death ray!

Quick test before poster session

Speaker badge making it official #Nervous

The poster was also put up and the visitors, mainly undergrads from Imperial and UCL, started to gather around the posters. I had quite a few people at my poster who were just as enthusiastic about the Pop-O-Matic as I was! It was great fun and a lot of balloons were popped!

Poster session

First reveal of the new Pop-O-Matic

After the poster session it was time for my talk - ahhh! Was so nervous! I took my shiny new, Pop-O-Matic with me to the lecture theatre and set up whilst the speaker before me had his Q&A session. I set it up and already I could hear comments on the laser. I then gave my talk and even made the audience laugh which woke them up a bit (it was almost 9pm on a uni day so I was surprised that I managed to make them laugh).

My talk

The talk was over and it was a huge relief I could finally reduce the tension and I had a great time giving my talk! It was great that I could spread the message about Outreach projects and someone at the end told me that I gave an inspiring talk which made me feel amazing because I was super nervous and I wasn't sure if I'd done a good job. 

It's honestly amazing to know that one of the Pop-O-Matics is finished and that it can begin its Outreach journeys! Out of the four new Pop-O-Matics that will be made two will stay at Imperial College for events on campus, one will go to the University of York where Dr. Lancaster will use it for events there and the last one will either stay at AWE or Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. The Pop-O-Matic I used at the conference has already been booked for an event (Science Festival in Belfast (13th Feb)) which is SO COOL! #Awesomeness 

I would definitely recommend any undergrads to try out an Outreach project, maybe you've been unsuccessful in a research placement application then an Outreach project is a great alternative. As you can see from the videos above I've learnt a myriad of lab skills and I've met so many new people, broadening my connections network. I would also recommend other physics societies to host a conference too - it's been a huge learning curve and provides an opportunity for undergrads to experience what it's like to present at a conference. The Imperial College and UCL Physics Undergraduate Research Conference will be an annual event so for any Imperial and UCL undergrads out there, definitely show off your work next year!

Shout out to Professor Roland Smith, head of the Plasma Physics Group at Imperial College London, for offering me this project and to all the amazing plasma peeps that have helped me during my Pop-O-Matic build! They were amazingly friendly and I'm so glad I accepted this project - I would certainly do it again if I was given the chance!

#ImprovingGenderBalance @ IOP

On the 23rd of January the Women in Physics at Imperial College team spread their inspirational stories across the large number of year 12 girls that attended the #ImprovingGenderBalance #GirlsInPhysics Day at the Institute of Physics (IOP). The event was focussed on tackling issues concerning unconscious bias, particularly that in the classroom. Seven female undergrads from Imperial Physics, including myself, had the opportunity to speak to the year 12s about unconscious bias, our experiences and it was also a chance for us to share a little bit of our experiences at uni and future plans.

The girls I spoke to seemed to have a much better experience in their classrooms than I did. The girls had more than one physics teacher whereas in my school I only had one. They seemed to have way more girls in their classes than I did - I was the only one. And they seemed to have a more positive view on physics in their school environments than me - it was seen as a cool subject in their schools and there wasn't a negative view on girls taking the subject. All of this was so nice to hear! It was lovely to know that in other schools taking physics isn't strange and that there are other girls in their classrooms taking the subject too! #WomenInPhysics #ThisGirlCan #PhysicsIsForAll

During the discussion we discussed the factors that may put girls off physics, here's a set of bullet point of what we thought were issues:

∞ Lack of knowledge of career prospects

∞ Lack of careers events where they have a large variety of careers on display rather than the usual banking, finance, army, police force and medical related stands

More careers events with a variety of professions - maybe even a STEM day! Medical physicists, electrical engineers, graphic designers, coders and just a myriad of professionals in different STEM related fields could hold a stand at a careers event and show the students that there's more to science than just lab coats and equations. 

∞ Lack of connection between what they were learning and how it could be applied to the real world

Maybe this should be mentioned in the lessons whilst they are learning a particular subject

∞ Textbooks are boring

Most textbooks are out of date and need to be updated. More real life examples and putting what they learn into context is something the girls were super keen on.

∞ Maths can be perceived to be really difficult

Having more revision websites for maths - I remember in my school days that it was hard to find a good maths website to revise from and the only good ones were super old - new maths revision sites please!

∞ Not enough trips to science facilities

From personal experience, I found going on trips to see real science happening in science facilities played a huge factor in my decision to choose to study physics at university - so teachers, more trips! :) I went to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in year 13 and was in awe by the work they were doing on medical imaging - it was the first time I saw how useful physics was in medicine and it completely changed my mind about the subject. These things aren't taught in schools and I think seeing the science happen with my own eyes rather than from a screen or from someone talking about it was definitely a great experience and sparked my interest in the subject.

∞ Bad teachers you weren't enthusiastic about the subject, typically teachers with no physics background

Having teachers with a background in physics will help in classrooms because most of them would have a degree in the subject hence they took it for a reason and that reason is most probably because they love physics. And you know what they say, enthusiasm is contagious so their love for physics will shine through their teaching and their students will catch the physics bug!

So that was a summary of the event. The girls also had a coding session and speed networking session at the event which helped the girls get essential contacts that could help them up their education/career ladder! I loved every moment of the event and it was great to see so many girls excited about physics - something I didn't experience when I was in school. Teachers, check out the IOP website here for more events and get your students involved and get them doing cool stuff outside as well as inside the classroom!

And for all the girls taking physics I'd like to say keep on following your dreams and don't let anyone tell you that physics is a guy subject! #ThisGirlCan

Here are some highlights from the event:

IOP, 80 Portland Place

#LovePhysics

Jess Wade, chair of Women in Physics at Imperial College (right) is doing her thing!

Dr. Heather Williams, senior medical physicist #WomenInMedPhys 

Maggie Lieu, an astrophysicist #Inspiration #WomenInAstro

~ 50 girls attended the event! #Result #GirlsInPhysics #Awesomeness

The #PhotoBooth was great fun! #IOP (Maggie Lieu and Jess Wade to my left)

Jessica Rowson, ex-engineer, ex-teacher and now project manager of Girls in Physics at the IOP hosted the event. #ImprovingGenderBalance

Marie Curie - one of two females to hold a Nobel Prize in Physics

Jocelyn Bell-Burnell - discovered pulsars #WomenInPhysics

Cisco coding session

#Coding the flappy bird game

Discussion session with WiP IC undergrads

Topics brought up in discussion: Not enough career prospect awareness is a major problem in schools

Jess Wade repping her group where they discussed the lack of inspiring teachers, finding maths difficult, uninteresting syllabus and boring textbooks. 

Kathryn, one of our WiP IC undergrads represented her group and spoke about the lack of good teachers

Uttara, another one of our WiP IC undergrads represented her group and I particularly liked the cheeky sign use #GirlsAreBetterThanBoys!!!

The WiP IC dream team! #WomenInPhysics

Our WiP IC undergrad PhotoBooth picture! 

A huge thank you goes to Jess Wade, chair of WiP IC for organising the Women in Physics undergrad discussion session at the IOP and for allowing me to take part. Thanks also goes to the IOP for organising the event with a shout out to Jessica Rowson, Natasha Plaister and Jessica Hamer.