This activity has been divided into two parts:
i) Simple experiments carried out at secondary schools by members of the EPS-YM section, after a brief introduction;
ii) Visits of students at Department of Physics, Laboratory of Surface Physics.
We were motivated by the possibility to inspire the next-generation of physicists by elucidating about possibilities of carriers in Physics and Materials Science. In particular, we have stimulated students to have a positive approach toward Physics.
The collaboration of professors has highly facilitated our activity.
Here, we list some of the experiments with economic materials carried out directly at secondary schools:
1) We have demonstrated how sunlight can be intensified through a magnifying glass, concentrating energy to melt an ice cube.
2) We have demonstrated how string instruments work by building our very own miniature guitar from a matchbox.
3) We have used static electricity to separate a mixture of salt and pepper
4) We have lifted an ice cube from a glass of water using a string.
5) We have carried out experiments on convective motions in hot air.
By using a Wood’s lamp and a laser, we have also explained the properties of electromagnetic radiation.
In order to facilitate the comprehension of the simple experiments, we have explained the most important physical concepts behind the experimental observations with the help of nice and simple presentations in Power Point.
Moreover, we have tried to stimulate the attitude toward experiments by giving them the opportunity to build the various parts required for the experimental apparatus.
The visit to the Department of Physics has been organized thanks to the crucial support of local municipalities, that have kindly shared school buses to transport students to University of Calabria in Arcavacata di Rende (CS).
The visit to University of Calabria has been an occasion to give students the first contact with University and to explain them research at our Department of Physics with simple words.
We have shown them some prototypes of devices developed at our Department, highlighting the importance of applied research and, in particular, the connection between academic and production worlds. Furthermore, we have also organized simple experiments about pressure and its effects, which have been carried out by using the vacuum instrumentation of the Laboratory of Surface Physics at University of Calabria.
Finally, we have discussed with the students about the various possibilities of carriers in Physics.
Researchers Night Budapest 2016
The main goal of this well-known EU project is to raise public awareness to the everyday influence of research in our life. We have taken out our part in the International initiation by organising a physics related event at the Eötvös University on the 30th of September 2016. This is now a traditional program for us every year: it is an open and free event for any curious person, but every year our main focus is on families, teenagers and younger children. There were some easily understandable and entertaining scientific presentation, which were presented by renewed researchers and students alike, with topics from the most novel and interesting research areas and present the tools of science. During the whole afternoon and evening (for seven hours) there were five thematic demonstration stands with over a 100 different experiments (the five themes were: thermodynamics, electromagnetism, modern physics, mechanics and liquids). The participants were be able to try out most of the non-dangerous experiments themselves, many of which can be easily reproduced at home. There were at least two presenters at each table, who were mostly physics students, and there were additional organisers who have taken small sized groups to the digital planetary at the campus. with the help of the staff of our Astronomical Department at the university. This event was another evidence that with the cooperation of the Roland Eötvös Physical Society, the two local universities (Eötvös Loránd University and the Budapest University of Technology and Econimics) and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Research Institutes we can organise a professional and interesting Physics Researchers Night event in Budapest.
Pictures can be found at: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AnNl0GK68LZFi0Rky5-05C7QkIAS
Náboj Physics in Budapest 2016
Physics Náboj is an international physics competition designed for teams of five high-school students that represent their schools. The problems in Náboj differ considerably from the routine school exercises which usually require only direct application of a given method: the Náboj problems require certain amount of inventiveness and ingenuity. Success in the competition is not depend on the individual abilities of the team members only but also on their efficient cooperation. This year the competition was held on the 4th of November 2016 at the exact same time at different locations, different countries.
The Hungarian part of the Náboj Physics was hosted by the Budapest Young Minds Section in Budapest, and we were able to organize the competition for 70 high school students without a registration fee. Teams were competing in two categories, Juniors and Seniors. The Junior category was open only for teams with all members attending first or second grade of a 4-year high school (or a corresponding grade in 5- or 8-year high school). The Senior category was open to any team consisting of high school students. The competition lasted 120 minutes during which the teams were trying to solve as many given problems as possible.
At the beginning of the competition each team received eight problems. As soon as the team correctly solved any of the problems, it received a new one. The solutions of the problems were mostly numerical. The winner was the team that solved most problems correctly in the given time limit. The difficulty of the problems was appropriate both for students inexperienced in physics competitions and for students who have already succeeded in Physics Olympiad or seminars. This was achieved by arranging the problems in order of their perceived difficulty. This year as the years before the professional quality of the problems were guaranteed by the organizers of Physics Correspondence Seminar part of Trojsten. After the competition and before the announcement of the results Dálya Gergely, a member of the Gravitational research group in the Eötvös University, held an informative lecture about gravitational waves for the students and the accompanying teachers. In the end, the best teams received certificates and prizes, like T-shirts, first-class physics literature (used worldwide for preparation for studying physics), and complimentary ticket to the CSOPA Science Center.
More about the competition: https://physics.naboj.org
Pictures: https://goo.gl/photos/us4Q5E2LnbNjQKKs6
Physics for High School Students
As a first effort in its existence, the Austrian section of EPS Young Minds (ÖPG Young Minds) has organized a special “Young Minds session” within the setting of the 66th Annual Meeting of the Austrian Physical Society. The aim was to let graduate students present their areas of research in front of an audience of high school students. The subjects included many-body electron systems, black hole physics and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and were presented in an accessible manner. The result was a lively discussion between students and presenters, and many interesting questions were asked. With roughly 250 attendants composed mostly of high school students, teachers and other interested participants, the event was a great success. We definitely plan to repeat it in the coming year, possibly also outside of the annual meeting.
For the purpose of advertising both the event and our ÖPG Young Minds section, we have created a flyer that we distributed in the community of Austrian physicists and sent out to high schools. For this, we made use of the financial support of EPS Young Minds. The flyer (in German) can be downloaded at http://oepg-students.at/uploads/beca8120f1622ea22a292a76dcd3ed07.pdf.
We have also contributed to organizing a session at the same meeting on possible career paths for physicists, aimed both at high school and university students. The subjects ranged from biophysics to software engineering with a focus on physics and again, high school students asked a lot of questions and were actively engaged in discussions.
Our activities have shown that it is easy to build a bridge between graduate students and high school students and to expose the latter to the forefront of research in modern physics. In the future, we want to continue in this spirit.
The physics of imperfect graphene
On the 29th of September 2016 the Antwerp Young Mind section invited Professor Doctor Eva Y. Andrei to give a colloquium at the University of Antwerp about her work on imperfect graphene. The target audience were the students and researchers of the University of Antwerp physics department, many of whom attended the lecture.
Professor Eva Andrei is an experimental condensed matter physicist at the Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA. Her research focuses on the electronic properties of graphene and other low dimensional materials and explores the effects of external perturbations on these types of systems. The experimental work done by her and her group led to several important discoveries, including the observation of the fractional quantum Hall effect in suspended graphene and the discovery of Van Hove singularities in twisted graphene layers. The speaker’s extensive experience and knowledge of these topics entitle her as an international authority on the subject of graphene.
Professor Andrei began her talk with a general introduction on the subject of graphene in order to make those who might not yet be familiar with this system acquainted with the topic. Subsequently, she focused on more specialized phenomena that emerge when the lattice of graphene is disrupted. In particular, she discussed her work on the effects of single atom vacancies on graphene’s electronic and magnetic properties. The colloquium as a whole was a great occasion for students to be introduced to the concepts of two-dimensional systems and graphene, while at the same time it provided the researchers of our department with a more profound overview of the theory and workings of imperfect graphene.
The lecture was followed by a reception, where the audience members and speaker could enjoy a drink and a bite. This also presented our students and researchers the opportunity to speak with professor Andrei in a more informal setting than the lecture itself.
Altogether, the colloquium was a great way for our university’s physics department to kick off the academic year.
When arts meet science
When Arts meet Science” was an outreach event realized in synergy with University of Catania and National Council of Research (CNR) in July 2016. It consisted mainly in an “Image Competition” and, as a consequence, an “Image Exhibition” realized firstly in the framework of the 6th International Conference on NANOstructures and nanomaterials SElf-Assembly (NanoSEA 2016; http://www.nanosea2016.imm.cnr.it/ ) held in Giardini Naxos (3-8 July 2016). All the conference attendees were invited to submit a computer-assisted or traditional scientific image designed to remind artistic subjects. The best selected 20 images were decorated with poems, poetry and famous sentences coming from the literary world by a proper committee, in order to pursue the aim to mix Science and Arts. In addition, they were displayed in the Exhibit Hall of the conference venue (ATAHOTEL NAXOS BEACH Conference Center) and were also published in the abstracts book. The printing costs were financed by EPS Young Mind grants of the Catania Section. The competition winner was awarded of a prize consisting in a free of charge double as a single room in the conference venue, while the second place winner image was used as cover for the abstracts book. This event gave a great visibility to the EPS Young Mind Catania Section group among all the conference attendees (about 150, coming from all countries of Europe). Some pictures of the exhibition hall are reported below.
The exhibition was then moved inside the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Catania, whose opening was held on the 28th of July 2016 and was followed by a happy hour offered by EPS Young Mind Catania section. All the Physics students and the permanent staff of Professors and Researchers were invited to participate to the event. Although most of the people were already on holiday, the event was attended by more than 50 people, especially students, permitting us to gain their attention and involve them for future activities. In any case, the exhibition was made permanent, thanks to the Department Director consensus, therefore all the students and people passing by the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Catania will always have the possibility of admiring it.
The costs of the events were supported in part by EPS Young Mind and in part by University of Catania. In particular, the grant (500 euro) financed by EPS Young Mind for this activities was spent to cover the printing cost (200 euro), the award (200 euro), and the happy hour joined to the Permanent Exhibition Opening (100 euro).
Physico-chemical experiments on the core of a comet
In the first part of his talk he explained the preceding laboratory experiments on the formation and chemical composition of cosmic dust grains and their ice mantles. Using mass-spectrometry he found different organic molecules like amino acids formed in the laboratory comet by a photochemical reaction with UV-radiation as it is also likely to happen in space. Those molecules are interesting because of their occurrence in all Proteins and genetic information carriers such as DNA and RNA and proof of their existence on real comets might give a new view on the origin of live in our solar system.
The second part of the talk was a summary of the Rosetta mission and some of its difficulties. The Professor showed pictures of the comet taken by the orbiter and described the landing process of Philae, which was quite exciting. Finally he explained the onboard measurement configuration and the results of his experiments on the comet.
Before the talk we had a barbecue. In doing so we aimed to create an active exchange between the students of physics and of chemistry. After the talk we also gave interested guests the opportunity to get in contact with the referee.
All in all we were really glad about having Prof. Meierhenrich here at Jena and about having the possibility to hear about such an impressive project at first hand.
For more pictures you can wisit our webside:
The Sound of Physics
The YM Valladolid Section released ‘The Sound of Physics’ on September 30th, 2016 for an audience of 300 people. Performed as the main event of the European Researchers Night 2016 at the Science Museum of Valladolid, its aim was the explanation of mechanical waves, particularly sound, and the characteristics of music. The spectacle was performed once more on November 26th, 2016 at the theater of Renedo de Esgueva (Valladolid) for 200 music students. Children and adults could enjoy and learn what a wave is, its mechanisms of propagation, and its physical properties – wavelength, frequency, amplitude, linear superposition… – together with associated physical phenomena, such as Doppler effect. How do different types of musical instruments produce sound? How can the characteristics of the latter be modified? These are only some of the questions that were answered during this activity. The explanations were accompanied by illustrative experiments, as well as short, but well-known, pieces of music, played by YM Valladolid members.
The first part of the show was mainly devoted to the properties of mechanical waves. To picture them, a variety of resources were used, such as ropes, animations and videos. The public could take part in a simulation of propagation of the sound inside different media, where they were the atoms, and their arms represented the interatomic forces. The audience played with a ball with a buzzer inside, perceiving the Doppler effect. They could also hear a sound produced by a whistle of the London Metropolitan Police, formed as the sum of two tones of frequencies too high for the human ear, and thus living the difference between frequency -physical quantity- and tone -subjective perception. The Rubens tube helped with the introduction of the concepts of stationary wave and resonance.
The second part dealt with the physics of the musical instruments. For percussion, wind, string, electronic and electromechanical instruments the following topics were covered: how the sound is generated, how its qualities can be controlled, and why these qualities are modified in that way. The role of resonance chambers was clarified, using as an example the ‘blasters’ sound production in the Star Wars saga by using a metallic spring and a plastic cup (as it was originally done). The public could agitate balloons with an hexagonal nut inside to understand the sound produced by a membrane instrument, and a Chladni plate helped to visualize it. The instruments used and explained included: glass bottles, ocarina, recorder, transverse flute, ukulele, solid metallic bars, violin, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, theremin and Tesla coil. Timbre was introduced by recording in situ the sound emitted by some of them and by explaining the differences among their waveforms and spectra. The show was enlivened by playing short well-known pieces, like ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’, ‘Concerning Hobbits’, ‘Star Wars Cantina’ and ‘We Will Rock You’, counting the latter with the participation of the audience.
After its great acceptance, further repetitions of the show are expected soon.
Light Interferences – Optics in School
As it is usual in the USC Young Minds Section, spreading optics and photonics through the Spanish educational system is a must. Last grant submission we asked for money to make experiments in the faculty instead of going to the schools. Main advantage of the performance of our activity in the faculty is the ease to make the same experiments than in the schools plus additional ones that cannot be done outside a lab.
The grant requested was for making a duality particle wave experiment. The idea was to make or to build a Ripple tank to explain the behaviour of the waves through a double slit. Unfortunately the total budget requested for the performance of this activity was to high to be supported by the funding of the Student Section. A new point of view was needed to make an interference experiment, which was at the beginning our main idea.
The new proposal was to make holograms in collaboration with one of our University labs. This activity has been done two times during the first semester: first with high capability students (17 in total) and a second one with students from 5th grade (which corresponds with students between 10 and 11 years old, 60 students in total). In combination with the old activities that we usually perform (Fiber optics, Interaction matter-radiation, Polarization, Visual Optics) we perform a new one related with Holograms. Therefore students came to our faculty and made 5 experiments separately.
Previous to the performance of the activity we produce a number of holograms to show it to the students so the main part of the budget was used to buy photographic material to print the hologram. No more material was needed because a holographic experiment is done during the physics grade and therefore we made ours only paying for the spare items so the laser, and optical material was in the lab.
After the fabrication of the holograms we show students how to make it and their properties. By simply using a lamp we show the recovery of the holograms and their characteristics. With this new idea we can explain some features of the interferometric behaviour of optical pulses, which is in fact one of the main points of the optics that we have not implemented yet in our Spreading optics activity.
Physics workshop in festival “Playground”
From July 8-10 the members of the University of Latvia Young Minds Section participated in a sports, music and creativity festival named “Playground”. The festival proved to be quite popular, garnering a turnout of a few thousand people. In the festival, our section operated a workshop in which attendants could take part in various physical demonstrations. The workshop attracted numerous people, young and old, most of whom had little day to day interaction with physics and science in general. Some were interested in the physical background of the experiments, while other were content with just witnessing the show.
Highlights of our demonstrations included:
- potato cannons and a catapult which people could use to shoot at pre-made targets;
- bottle rockets which could be launched in the air with pressure created by the release of CO2 from the reaction of baking soda with vinegar;
- a mixture of corn starch and water, which changes its apparent viscosity depending on the way it is handled;
- a demonstration with different color dyes that were placed inside glycerol, then slowly, carefully stirred until they seemed to have mixed. The dyes were then unmixed by stirring the liquid backwards;
- an electronic 1 vs 1 reaction game set up on a breadboard and operated by Raspberry Pi;
- the creation of dense mist by pouring water onto dry ice.
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