Physics Flash Talks

The planet is in trouble; fossil fuels are being depleted and are contributing to global warming. Plants, however, have been directly harnessing solar energy for as long as they have existed. A flash talk from Tomas Leijtens. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Kathryn boast gives a flash talk discussing what we already know about dark matter, and what we still have to find out about it. There is quite a lot of conclusive evidence for the existence of dark matter, but we still have very little idea of what it actually is. Kathryn Boast takes you on a guided tour through one of the biggest mysteries in physics, and shows how physicists are trying to shine a light on dark matter and show you some of the kits that she is helping to develop. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Albert Einstein is one of the greatest scientists to ever live, and even he made mistakes, as Luke Jew explains - A comforting thought for all of us! This great mistake was about the astrophysics that will ultimately determine how our universe will end. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

A flash talk given by Liam Brannigan about "Connecting the fast and slow parts of the climate system through the stormy upper ocean. " Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

In this flash talk Wojciech Kozlowski discusses the bizarre properties of measurement and how we can harness its probabilistic nature to produce results. Quantum mechanics is currently our most precise physical theory. Whilst we do not have many strictly quantum technologies yet, quantum theory is necessary for our understanding of the world around us, from the basic constituents of matter to semiconductors in electronic devices, and even biological processes such as photosynthesis. Measurement and its probabilistic nature lie at the very heart of quantum mechanics which prompted Albert Einstein to say his famous words "God does not play dice with the universe!" Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

What can space teach us about the laws of physics? Space is huge and complicated. This is a challenge, but also gives us the ultimate physics lab. Francesca Day explores this further. Light from the beginning of the universe is hidden in the night sky. In space we can see physics at much higher energies and over much larger distances than we could ever manage on Earth. Space is also a great place to look for new particles – it produces and accelerates them for us and then drops them right on our heads. I will talk about how we can use space to discover new physics and new particles.

Jesse Liu, winner of the the departmental Speaking Competition for undergraduates, gives a short talk on the physics of a violin. The violin and elastic band are both string instruments. Yet what is it about the first that allows it to produce sounds many would regard as beautiful? I'll explore the physics behind music and the violin to illuminate this intersection of art and science.

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Tiffany Harte, Oxford Physics, discusses absolute zero temperatures and how by cooling atoms in a lab we can aim to replicate the coldest place in the Universe. I will be discussing how we cool atoms to create the coldest place in the Universe in the middle of a lab, and the fascinating states that emerge from these ultracold gases. We will look at cooling using lasers and evaporation, and see how the Highland Fling can explain giant quantum states.

Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

A short flash talk from Peter Hatfield, Oxford Physics, who discusses the origins of the galaxies we see in our night sky and the mysterious nature of dark matter. Galaxies are huge clusters of hundreds of billions of stars - the Milky Way is our galaxy, itself just one of many billions more. But even these are diminutive compared with the sea in which they swim, dark matter, an unknown substance we cannot see with our telescopes. We will look back in time over more than half the age of the Universe to see how galaxies sloshed about in this ocean of dark matter during their creation and development, hopefully helping us learn more about the galaxies we see today and potentially even something about the mysterious nature of dark matter itself.

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An exciting talk and demonstration about superconductivity and its potential practical applications by Ben Williams, Oxford Physics. Superconductivity is a weird property of some materials that has exciting applications both in the lab and outside, in new technologies. The only problem is, we don't quite know what makes superconductivity work! In this talk, you'll see superconductivity in action and find out how, just like modern-day alchemists, physicists are looking to turn the mundane into the magical! Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/