Light from other worlds

Posted on 26/09/201504/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

Within the framework of “European Researchers Night 2015” organized by the Science Museum of Valladolid, Physics League has organized a big-workshop related to light because of the IYL2015. Taking advantage of many popular films, the basics of the physical principles can be shown in an attractive and stunning way.

Seven workshops were carried out in parallel in a big space in the Science Museum of Valladolid. The success of the activity was recognized by its directress with more than 500 participants during the event.

Avatar: Different kinds of luminescence have been explained using the Pandora’s universe: Bioluminescence (natural algae), Chemiluminescence (bracelets) and fluorescence (different paints,minerals).
Star wars: The holograms are reproduced by a ‘real’ hologram which can be seen with a laser and an ‘optical illusion’ performed by an acetate pyramid. A ‘fight’ between the Jedi (red laser) and Sith (blue laser) sides is performed with tinted fluorescents and plasma balls. How to lead the light is addressed solving a ‘laser khet’ puzzle with only 3 available mirrors.
Entrapment: a portable laser maze has been built with an Arduino, lasers, and photo-detectors. The light-matter interaction was explained in the entrance.
Spy kids: some ways to send information are explained. For instance, a spectra sound was built to transmit music using a laser. Polarization of light is shown using 3D-glasses.
Up: what happens when solar radiation crosses the top of the atmosphere? The radiative effect of clouds and aerosols is shown by a laser, a glass of water, and sugar. Different kinds of aerosols are introduced and a sandstorm is performed in a big box. The role of aerosols as cloud condensation nuclei is proved by the formation of clouds in a bottle with hairspray and warm water.
Inside Out (workshop I): with 5 atomic spectrum lamps we can explain why we can see colours: Sodium
(‘Joy’, yellow), Zinc (‘Sadness’, blue), Neon (‘Anger’, red), Thalium (‘Disgust’, green), Cesium (‘Fire’, purple). The different aspect of a rainbow inside each box helps to understand the colour absorption/emission. Diffraction is also addressed.
Inside Out (workshop II): how do our eyes work? With a laser kit the human eyes are visually explained. Some problems related to the vision are also detailed. White light is formed by Newton’s disc and decomposed using a prism. Different colour fires go in depth to colour absorption/emission.

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A YBCO superconductor for outreach

Posted on 14/09/201507/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

When the package arrived from Germany, we immediately knew what was inside. We eagerly, but carefully, opened the package to find inside what we had been hoping for. A coated YBCO superconductor, larger than any we had previously used. Naturally, the first thing we did was to fill a container with liquid nitrogen to test it. Once the superconductor was cooled to cryogenic temperatures, we were not disappointed. The magnet floating above it was more stable and could be mounted on a greater distance from the superconductor compared to previously used superconductors. Furthermore, the superconductor itself is shielded from the heat of the air around it, allowing it to be lifted out of the liquid nitrogen for a longer period of time.

Since the superconductor arrived we have visited many high schools in the Netherlands. There we found that the advantages of this superconductor as described above helped us to fascinated the students even more. With this new superconductor, we can properly demonstrate the levitating magnet, even to the students in the back of the class!

Most of our experiments are based on
elementary science, which the students themselves can understand. Therefore, they don’t expect us to show them something that baffles most Physicists. With this experiment we try to explain to students that Physics is not finished yet, and that still a lot of research has to be done to fully understand the world around us. Using this new durable superconductor, we have already sparked enthusiasm in hundreds of students, and will continue to do so for many years to come.

Lab tour following FUNlight

Posted on 18/07/201507/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

The Copenhagen DTU YM Section helped with arranging a talk, funded by the OSA student chapter and the Department of Photonics, named FUNlight. FUNlight served as an informal lecture in which bachelor students were invited to get a closer look at research being done at the department, with subsequent free food and beverages. An oral presentation was made by Kresten Yvind, group leader of Nanophotonic Devices, who talked about Nano lasers and tunable MEMS lasers for OCT applications.
Directly following the FUNlight talk, students were given the opportunity for a lab tour both by the presenter as well as two EPS members: Ivan-Lazar Bundalo and Simone Gaiarin. They were thus given the opportunity to observe how cutting edge research equipment from different fields can actually look like in practice. The students, numbering around 20 people, were split in 3 groups and taken to 4 different labs from the fields:

Optical chips (interconnects)
Plastic fiber drawing tower
Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) fabrication and testing
High-speed optical communications

In drawing tower lab students were introduced to the whole process of making plastic optical fibers (step index and microstructured). They could see different stages of fiber fabrication as well as most common problems related to that technology and the research focus areas. In FBG lab they were shown how phase mask technique can be used with UV laser light to make FBGs in microstructured fibers. Further on, they have been shown the principle of how fiber optic strain, humidity and temperature sensors work.

The high-speed optical communication lab is mostly focused on system type of experiments using a combination of stock fiber and newly developed specialty fibers acquired from OFS Fitel Denmark and NTT Photonics Laboratories. The basics of long-reach optical communication and imperfections causing problems in transmission systems were explained.

Optics at your School and Open Week @UA

Posted on 22/06/201522/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

The Aveiro YM Section realized an activity for Schools divided in two events: visits to schools in Aveiro region and the participation in the Week of Science at the University of Aveiro. This was what we have done and we keep doing nowadays.

First, we have visited a high school in Águeda (Aveiro) and presented some Physics concepts together with experimental demonstrations. The students targeted were from the 11st grade and shown great interest in the experiments and greatly thanked our visit. Contrary to some cases, these students really got involved in the activities and due to that we think they have learned many things. We considered this a very fruitful visit, were we gained also experience in presenting for large audiences.

We have also participated in the Week of Science at the University of Aveiro, where we organized a great event for more than 10 schools, which visited us. In total, we reached more than 300 students from different levels. During one week, we have organized 6 sessions, each one having about 50 students. Students came from schools from all Aveiro region. In these sessions, we have presented many Physics concepts, both theoretically and experimentally. The students participated in the experiments themselves and have shown great interest in everything. We consider this an excellent activity, which we intend to repeat this year with more experiments.

We highlight that all members of our Section participated in the sessions and this was also good for the strength of the Section.

Meanwhile, we plan to continue visits to schools.

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Lviv Days of Light

Posted on 17/05/201504/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

ICTP Young Minds section together with Ivan Franko National University of Lviv held the “Lviv Days of Light” in May 16-17, 2015. The event consisted of three parts: lecturing part, experimental part and entertaining part. The role of light in art, the nature of light and the application of optics in everyday life were discussed during the presentations. Interesting light phenomena, namely: interference, diffraction, polarization, luminescence etc. – were demonstrated later. Finally, everybody had an opportunity to draw a picture using luminous paints and to observe the beautiful effect afterwards under the UV light.

The program of the activities was the following:
16 May:

Popular scientific talk about the role of light in art, given by Victoria Boyarko-Dolzhenko from the Lviv Academy of Art;
Everybody (children of all ages!) had an opportunity to draw a picture using the luminous paints;

17 May:

Popular lecture about the role of light and its different sources was provided by Vitaly Vistovskyy from the Department of Experimental Physics (Ivan Franko National University of Lviv);
Fascinating optical experiments demonstrating the physical properties of light were provided by Igor Pashuk and Andrij Zhyshkovych from the Department of Experimental Physics (Ivan Franko National University of Lviv);
Exhibition of luminous drawings including a number of paintings created by lviv artist Oksana Romanova.

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The power of physics

Posted on 17/05/201510/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

The Physics League, Valladolid YM Section, organized an outreach activity in several museums: the Science Science Museum of Valladolid, the Barcial de la Loma (Valladolid) and Íscar (Valladolid). The aim of this activity is to demystify some of the most common beliefs of pseudo-science. We explain some ‘paranormal’ tricks or “superpowers” that are easily explained with physical laws.

The experiments carried out in this show are:

Levitation: We have constructed the same levitating system with steel rods used by ‘yoguis’ in India for levitating above the ground. We explain the equilibrium forces and center of mass.
Lenz tube: gravity is evaded when a magnet is dropped through a copper tube. The perturbation of the magnetic field induces currents, with the effect that the magnet falls slower.
Creating electricity: a fluorescent is turned on without electrical connections by a hidden plasma sphere.
The way that electric field induces potential difference in the electrons into the fluorescent is explained.
Bending spoons: The superpower of bending metal by just touching it is demystified. A gallium spoon looks like a normal kitchen spoon but it melts at 28 ºC being easily bent in our hands.
Burning hands: a mixture of water, soap and hairspray allows us to burn our hands without damage due to the Leidenfrost effect.
Fire control: A Rubens’ tube shows the modulation of fire caused by “supernatural beings”, which is
explained by acoustic standing waves in the tube.
Telekinesis: at a certain distance, a pile of glasses is destroyed and candles are put out. This superpower lies on an air vortex hidden in the backstage.
Duel of strength: the attendance is challenged to prove their strength against members of Physics League. Because of the knowledge of center of mass, our team always wins…
Walking through broken glass: We perform the trick of walking through broken glass. This trick is done in
some societies claiming their powerful minds. We show that is just physics at work!
Bed of nails: the control of pain shown by fakirs lying over a bed of nails is also demystified. The relationship between pressure and the surface where it is applied is the basis to understand this “superpower”. We also break a concrete block over a Physics League member lying on this bed.
Ghost apparitions: the scariest moment of the show arrives when a mystery girl suddenly appears!
Thankfully, Ghostbusters go to our rescue, and show us that the apparition is a “Pepper’s Ghost” effect.

The attendance is invited to prove all the experiments.

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Passione Fisica

Posted on 03/05/201507/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

This year Young Minds Naples Section has supported the event “Passione Fisica” , 3rd May 2015, at “Città della Scienza”, an interactive science museum in Naples. “Passione Fisica” is a day dedicated to popularization of science, in particular through Physics experiments. The event has seen the collaboration of Physics’ students, researchers and professors of University of Napoli “Federico II” Physics Department, researchers of the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte in Naples and high school students. The event was born two years ago as a way to gather funds for the reconstruction of the science museum, which was destroyed by arson. Besides this aspect and, of course, spreading science culture and scientific knowledge, the aim of the event is to realize simple yet curious experiments with everyday materials in order to explain the physical principles beneath them. The event is designed both for adults and children with an interest in science. These experiments are reproducible at home and, most of all, fully interactive. Indeed both adults and children are engaged in discussions and attempts to understand the presented phenomena. This year, our intention has been to expand the range of experiments and physics fields. Creation of a non-Newtonian fluid using water mixed with potato flour in an inflatable pool: this experiment is particularly suitable for children because they can see a completely different behavior of matter, far from what they see in everyday life and, most of all, they can reproduce their own non-Newtonian fluid at home. Generation of plasmas through Microwave oven using simply a candle and a beaker on top of it: the intense electromagnetic field causes a ionization of the air subject to combustion which give rise to a blob of plasma. Measurement of the speed of light using a Microwave oven and a chocolate bar: without rotating the chocolate bar, the intense electromagnetic field melt the chocolate where the field is more intense; measuring the distance between this points and using the standard frequency of the microwave, one can give a rough estimate of the speed of light. Waveguide using a green laser and water: water flowing from a bottle can be used as a waveguide for laser light; if water is twisted using acoustic wave, the effect is even more astonishing.

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Physics Got Talent

Posted on 23/04/201510/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

On April the 23th took place the Award Cerimony for the contest “Physics Got Talent”. The contest was adressed to young students attending high school in Naples. They had to send a video (max 7 minutes) in which they describe an experiment performed by themselves explaining what they do, what they use and what are the conclusions of their work. The video were download on the facebook page and youtube channel created to increase interest for the event.
We assigned three prizes: two of them chosen by the jury, called the first and second “technical winner”; and another prize for the top rated video on the web (like for Facebook and YouTube) called “popular prize”. The online vote received more 1000 like on the page .
Prizes consisted of didactic sets for the schools. The sets are composed by compasses, electrical circuits, lasers, optical lenses, pendulum, slinky, stopwatches etc.
About 100 students, belonging to the schools who joined the contest, took part to the event.
During the ceremony the videos made by the participants were shown and the students themselves explained better how they performed the experiment, how they built the setup and the reasons who motivated them to join the contest.
These latter short interviews underlined the importance to stimulate curiosity and passion about physics among the younger generation of students. In addition it was an opportunity for students to visit the physics department and know more about young minds project.
The winner was invited to perform their experiment to the event “Passione Fisica” .

Here we report the winners :
Technical prizes:

Liceo Cuoco , “Costruzione di un motore elettrico”(“How to made an eletric motor”)
Liceo Calamandrei , “Termogiocando” (“Playing with termodinamic”)

Popular prize:
Liceo Suor Orsola Benincasa, “Legge di Stevin” (“Stevin’s Law”)

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Physics for everyone project at ELTE

Posted on 18/04/201508/01/2016 by YM Webmaster

The main goal of the project was to raise public awareness to the everyday influence of physics in our life. Physics themed presentations were held in the whole country organised by the Hungarian EPS member ELFT, and we took our part in the project by organising the main flagship event at the Eötvös University. This was an open and free event for any curious persons, but our main focus was on families, teenagers and younger children. There were four 30 minute long easily understandable and entertaining scientific lectures. The lectures were presented by renewed scientists and students alike, with topics from the most novel and interesting research areas. 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 a darkroom for optical experiments). The participants were also able to try out most of the nondangerous experiments themselves. There were at least four presenters at each table, who were mostly physics students, and there will were additional organisers who have taken small sized groups to the digital planetary at the campus.There were also interesting astronomical lectures every hour in the afternoon, and there was also an hourly rocket and explosion experiment in the open. We and the ELFT aim to grow this national event to an international celebration for physics in the following years.

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The Game of Physics – YM BAA 2015

Posted on 14/03/201513/05/2016 by YM Webmaster

Within the framework of the “Open–door day” in the Science Faculty of University of Valladolid, three workshops of 30 minutes were carried out in parallel, with three physics areas: Thermodynamics, Optics and Electromagnetism. The main objective of this project was to approach physics knowledge to high school students in an attractive way taking advantage of the popular TV-series “Game of Thrones”.

In the Thermodynamics workshop (set in House Targaryen), the students discovered the following experiments/topics:

Two ping-pong balls get closer blowing in the space between them (Bernouilli effect).
Water boiling with a temperature below 100°C, due to low pressure.
A bottle filled with hot air is deformed by atmospheric pressure.
A cloud of alcohol is created by depressurization.
Dry ice is used to illustrate the different densities of CO2 and air.
The Leidenfrost effect is shown burning hands with a mixture of water, hairspray and soap.

In the Optics workshop (set in House Baratheon), the following concepts are explained:

Basic concepts of reflection, refraction, limit angle and optical fibre.
Invisibility by the same refraction index of Pyrex and sunflower oil.
A homemade vapour-display creates a screen of water vapour (laminar flow), the interaction light-matter is introduced.
A PC-monitor without its polarizing film cannot display any image. Linear polarizers are used to recover the image and to show the total extinction.
A set of four mirrors is adequately placed in order to banish a person (cloaking effect). A 3D image is achieved with an acetate pyramid and a video (holograms).

In the Electromagnetism workshop (located Beyond the Wall), the students discover the following phenomena:

The electromagnetic force is shown on aluminium strips and soap bubbles. This concept is also illustrated with a Van der Graaf generator.
A ferromagnetic fluid, iron filings, magnets and a magnetic field visualizer are used to show the magnetic field.
A magnetic levitation kit is used to illustrate the power of the magnetic force.
A plasma sphere and a Tesla coil with a light bulb become two ways to reproduce an aurora borealis.

The students filled a questionnaire (accessible by a QR code) and the results were very impressive: the activity got a score of 4.8 of 5, and most of them want to repeat an experience like this. 26 out 200 (13% of the participants) express their intention to study Physics after seeing our activity.

This show has been performed four times through June 2015 with a total audience close to 1,000 viewers. In May 2015, this activity was awarded the EPL Best YM Activity Award 2015 during the 4th EPS Young Minds Leadership Meeting.

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