Communicating Physics

Hello,

Picture tweeted by @DiamondLightSou of me demonstrating.

Well, I know some of you will have seen what I've been up to this week.

Wednesday was the Open Day. We set up in the beamline between 9-10, ready to show around visitors the beam room and my hovering train. And when the groups started coming, it was non-stop from there forward. For every group, I was presenting a little bit of information about what superconductors are, why they're important and what I was doing with them. Then I got to show them.  No train has been dunked in liquid nitrogen quite so regularly, but I was able, in the most part to demonstrate my project, even performing an old cliché of slipping a piece of paper underneath whilst levitating.

As a nice surprise, many of the other placement students also popped up around lunchtime to watch me perform the levitation. I was really pleased with the response I got not just from them, but from everyone in general, who seemed to enjoy the day; my project is, after all, an Outreach activity and so if I can interest people, even briefly, that's my job complete.

Though busy, it didn't stop us having a little fun near the end of the day as we tried floating little model people (her name is Betsy) in trucks. The results can be seen in this (speeded up I might add) gif:

  http://makeagif.com/cYaVFf

 

The right 2 have been to heavy to hover, but the left three have all been
in the air. His name is Fred.

Thursday was almost inevitably a lot calmer, but I was happy spending the day making the presentation ready for the end of my placement. It did entail though wandering the whole of the way around the synchrotron ring taking a few pictures. Throughout the day though I was trying the think up ways of mounting my track which...

The arrangement for my track - 4 North poles facing up, surrounded by 6 South
poles facing up.

On Friday, I managed using the arrangement to the right. The North poles down the middle created a high magnetic field track, causing a perfect contour for the superconducting disks to follow. The South poles down both sides hold the North poles close together, preventing them from repelling one another too much; any gaps cause the train to unceremoniously fall. This floated my train so successfully, I had to make cardboard buffers as it flew off the end!

 The rest of the day was spent trying to track down more of the little trains I'm using, designing a full length stretch of track and looking for decorations for the train. After all, it'll look nicer with a bit of grass and a station.  

Other events on Friday included giving an interview about me and my placement for Diamond Comms Dep, hoping to also spread Diamond's fame both within and outside Harwell Campus, and some chocolate being left in our office by some of the other placement students. Thanks guys!

Type soon!
PS. Background picture is the capillary furnace glowing in the beamline (found I'd left some pictures on the camera).