The Long Road to the Higgs Boson – and Beyond
The discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN’s LHC accelerator in 2012 by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations was the culmination of a decades-long search that had started in 1964 with the proposal of this unique particle, a signature of the origin of the....
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30-minute lecture about the physics of hyperfine interactions, and about how to calculate hyperfine interactions by the WIEN2k DFT code
More details | Watch nowCommunicating with light
Most of the data we generate and receive (whether emails, tweets, videos or mobile calls) are now carried by optical fibres, which use light to transmit vast quantities of information over trans-oceanic distances. The use of hundreds of wavelengths ....
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Longboard physics
A few (surprising?) thoughts on how the wheels on a longboard or skateboard actually move.
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Jonathan describes his adventures with a longboard and some different methods of making a speedometer for it.
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Early lighthouses used coil and wood fires before moving on to gas and then electricity powered lights. Massive improvements took place by using a lens system around the light. The development of the Fresnel lens brought what we now regard as the....
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Light, particularly sunlight, is believed to be good for our health. Many ancient civilisations even attributed it with mystical healing powers.Renowned for his entertaining lectures, Professor David Phillips, President of the RSC, uses his expertise....
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New carbon targets requires reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by 50% for 2030. This house believes that it will be impossible to meet the emissions reductions required to fulfil these obligations without the use of nuclear power. Taking the pr....
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During the Renaissance in Venice, composers such as the Gabrieli and Moneverdi created some of their greatest masterpieces for performance in the great churches on festive occasions. But what would the music have sounded like, given its complexity an....
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Sir Arnold Wolfendale FRS is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Durham, and former Astronomer Royal. In 1912, Victor Hess embarked on a perilous balloon ascent and discovered the 'Cosmic Radiation', actually a beam of atomic particles....
More details | Watch nowThe search for a deeper understanding of our universe at the Large Hadron Collider
With the start of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, particle physics entered a new era. The LHC will provide a deeper understanding of the universe and the insights gained could change our view of the world, and the lecture will present some o....
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The physics of the eye, its performance and colour vision: refraction and accommodation; photoreceptors and resolution; compromises in visual performance.
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On scales much bigger than the wavelength, rays explain the behaviour of interfaces, mirrors, lenses, optical instruments, including telescopes and microscopes.
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White light comprises colours in the visible spectrum. The electromagnetic spectrum. Speed of light. Young's experiment and waves. Quanta and photons.
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Sound is produced in the larynx; filtering it in the vocal tract produces formants and phonemes. The acoustics, mechanics and some neurobiology of hearing. Pitch perception.
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Reflecting waves gives standing waves, which can be resonances. Standing waves on strings and in pipes and plates.
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Superposing waves with different frequencies gives beats and Tartini tones. Removing beats gives consonance. Tuning consonances gives temperament.
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Frequency, amplitude, envelope and spectrum affect pitch, loudness and timbre. All are discussed and quantified here.
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The Doppler effect
Moving either source or receiver produces a frequency shift called the Doppler effect, which we measure and analyse.
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Sound is a longitudinal wave of variations in pressure and density. We derive and measure its speed.
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The wave equation and its physical origin. Power in a wave and its relation to intensity in radiation.
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In an extended medium, inertia and a restoring force can lead to waves, which reflect at boundaries, either erect or inverted.
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Inertia and restoring forces can, with low friction or damping, lead to oscillations and resonance. We analyse the mechanics of vibrations.
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The inverse square law explains planetary motion - and apples falling. Newton's law, measuring G, calculating orbits.
More details | Watch nowParticle Physics and the Mysteries of the Early Universe
Dr Cristina Lazzeroni, a Royal Society University Research Fellow from the University of Birmingham, reveals the secrets of the world's largest accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider and how the LHC experiments hope to answer big questions about the ....
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The LHC is the most powerful particle accelerator ever built. It is capable of recreating the very energetic conditions last seen in the universe a billionth of a second after the Big Bang, and allows particle physicists to study the fundamental ingr....
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Torques produce angular acceleration, moment of inertia 'resists' it. Rotational kinetic energy and angular momentum.
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Peeling sticky tape emits energy that extends into the X-ray regime, reports a study in Nature. The research provides evidence for a phenomenon that was first observed more than 50 years ago.nnIt is well known that unwinding sticky tape produces spar....
More details | Watch nowDark Matter, Dark Energy
Smoot's Nobel Prize was awarded for his analysis of that whisper from the Big Bang, the cosmic microwave background radiation. Today he hopes CERN's data will again transform our understanding of the universe. Young scientists Bilge Demirkoz and Benj....
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Awarded a Nobel Prize for using lasers to control and cool atoms, producing the Bose-Einstein condensation, Bill Phillips is eager to hear about new theories from young scientists like Hannah Venzl. An exciting dialogue develops between them on a boa....
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Fine tuning the frequencies of light gave John Hall a Nobel Prize, and helped transform the fields of precision measurement and information transmission. Iris Choi and Andrei Ghicov are young scientists excited by the ways physics can change our worl....
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David Gross's Nobel Prize was for work on the 'strong' force which acts between quarks inside the atom. Now he works on string theory, hoping to understand how all the forces of nature could be united. He believes the next steps may involve throwing ....
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p=mv. If external forces are zero, momentum is conserved. In collisions, energy may be conserved (elastic) or not (inelastic).
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Why can’t we see atoms?
John talks about diffraction and the limits it puts on our ability to image atoms. Can we make an electron-microscope without lenses?
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In finite objects, the total external force equals the total mass times the acceleration of a point called the centre of mass.
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Energy and power
The total work done on an object equals the increase in its kinetic energy. For conservative forces, we can define potential energy.
More details | Watch nowThe Physics of Angels and Demons
Professor Harrison Prosper of FSU Physics Department looks at the science behind the recently released movie 'Angels and Demons', starring Tom Hanks and based upon a Dan Brown novel. Prof. Prosper discusses topics such as antimatter, dark matter, dar....
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Carefully distinguish mass and weight. Hooke's law quantifies deformation. Contact forces have normal and frictional components.
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Light is reflected off a flexible shiny surface fixed to the end of a plastic tube. When one speaks into the tubes sound vibrations pass down the tube and make the surface vibrate. The reflected light is therefore sent off from the surface in a con....
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Temperature Scales
John Murrell explains scales and colour changes with temperature, boiling and melting,
More details | Watch nowPiezoelectricity
Some minerals such as quartz can produce electricity simply by squeezing or bending them - these are called piezoelectric crystals. Here is a simple and cheap demonstration you can do.
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Although essentially a very simple device the Gieger Counter is an exquisitely sensitive detector of ionising radiation. It can detect a single particle. Here we demonstrate its use in detecting radiation from minerals and describe in simple terms ho....
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A Breathtaking Journey into the Innermost Structure of our Universe. Runner up: Best use of Animation and Best Short Documentary for the 2002 International Festival of Cinema and Technology.
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Dr Tara Shears explains why scientists are convinced that Dark Matter exists and how a new experiment called the Large Hadron Collider might finally tell us exactly what this mysterious missing mass is made of.
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If equal amounts of matter and anitmatter were created at the birth of the universe then why does our universe seem to be made almost entirely from matter? Dr Tara Shears tells us how this mystery could be explained by the Large Hadron Collider exper....
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Dr Brian Cox takes us on a tour of the Large Hadron Collider where the conditions moments after the Big Bang are to be recreated.
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Dr Tara Shears explains that one of Science's greatest achievements is to have accurately measured everything from the width of the universe to the diameter of a quark. This film features an animated zoom in from the universe to the heart of a hydrog....
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The Large Hadron Collider at CERN is the biggest science experiment ever built. Scientists from all over the world are heading to CERN with the aim of recreating particles from the beginning of the universe. Dr Brian Cox takes us on a scientific jour....
More details | Watch nowNuclear Power Plant Safety – What’s the Problem?
A significant proportion of our electricity is generated by thermonuclear reactions. The dangers attached to these processes and the radioactive products are well known and publicised. Much less well known are the measures taken to ensure that the hi....
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An elegantly simple optical diffraction demonstration with an inexpensive laser pointer is used to show the way in which x-rays can reveal the structure of crystals, and in particular, the double helix structure of DNA.
More details | Watch nowRichard Feynman – The Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures – Part 1
A gentle lead-in to the subject, Feynman starts by discussing photons and their properties.
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The main problems associated with communicating with distant space probes like Voyager 1 are investigated. The role played by diffraction in limiting the amount of power receivable on Earth is discussed. The further problems of reaching a nearby st....
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F=ma (laws 1&2). Forces come in pairs that add to zero (3). Newton's laws apply in inertial frames of reference. Some common approximations made in applying them.
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In simple harmonic motion, displacement, velocity and acceleration vary sinusoidally with time, but with different phases.
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Uniform circular motion: angular displacement and velocity are introduced and centripetal acceleration is determined.
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Motion with uniform acceleration, such as in a uniform gravitational (or electric) field is projectile motion, analysed here with examples.
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Kinematics quantifies motion without explaining the causes of it. Here we study accelerations that are zero, positive or negative.
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A look at what was known when Newton started to develop his theory of gravitation and how he used these ideas and data to make his great forward step
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How extending Galileo's relativity to magnetism leads to Einstein's relativity, time dilation, length contraction, relativity of simultaneity and E=mc2 .
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