Departmental news

Alongside other University departments, members of the Department of Physics have been working to find ways to combat the Coronavirus crisis. Here are some examples:

1) Donation of University Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to the NHS

Many of Warwick’s research labs have suspended activity to support the Government’s instruction for all but critical workers to stay at home.

However, those labs held significant supplies of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that would be better employed in the NHS rather than stored in those labs.

Neil Gillespie, a Senior Civil Engineering Technician in Warwick’s School of Engineering, and Alan Warwood Head of Facilities in Warwick’s Estates Office, pulled together a team of colleagues from across all our Estates team and our science departments to gather up that equipment and take it to the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust’s Coventry site.

So far they have supplied the following to the trust:

• 155 FFP3 face masks
• 470 over glasses
• 400 safety glasses
• 20,400 nitrile gloves of various sizes
• 1,000 shoe covers

Robb Johnston, Technical Services Manager, coordinated the collection of PPE in Physics.

2) Creation of a Video Showing How to Make a Full Face Visor out of a Plastic Bottle

Dr Matthew Broome of the Condensed Matter Physics group has uploaded a video to Youtube explaining how to make a DIY visor. The video can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri5DYGhjsJg.

Warwick Physics has a small number of work experience placements available every year for students in Years 10-12.

For the 2019/20 academic year, these placements will take place between 14-17 April 2020.

Head to https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/intranet/work_experience for more information, including how to apply.

The first Warwick Christmas Lecture of 2019 featured talks and live experiments by Physics academic James Lloyd-Hughes and our technical staff Paul McCarroll and Alan Burton. The audience of over 1100 enjoyed a fun and informative Christmas Lecture, including the Arts Centre's loudest ever explosion (deliberate and controlled).

The second Christmas Lecture included talks by Rachel Edwards and Ally Caldecote, featuring several paddling pools of non-Newtonian fluids.

On 8 September, David Armstrong of the Astronomy and Astrophysics group appeared on the iconic BBC astronomy show "The Sky at Night" to discuss the hunt for exoplanets with host Maggie Aderin-Pocock.

The episode is available on BBC iPlayer until 12 October.

Staff and students from the Physics department will again contribute to Coventry's "Pint of Science" festival this year, to be held from 20-22 May in venues around the city. Departmental representatives include Jessica Marshall, Matthew Hoskin, Sam Seddon, Tishtrya Mehta, and Alun Rees.

Fancy learning how to grow a crystal, make lightning or dance like a sound wave? Youngsters with a passion for science will be able to enjoy some real-life experiments at the University of Warwick’s Science Gala this week.

The free public event, which takes place on Wednesday 30 January, will open the doors of some of the University’s scientific facilities, as well as offering a hands-on experience for children and young people, their teachers and families, and anyone interested in finding out more about science and technology.

Professor Brian Cox OBE has hailed the vital role of universities in communicating science to the general public as he was awarded an honorary degree at the University of Warwick, the host for this year’s British Science Festival.

"Pint of Science" is returning from the 20-22nd May 2019, in various pubs across Coventry and Warwickshire. The 2018 festival involved a number of staff and students from Physics, and the call for speakers and volunteers for 2019 is now open.

This Physics Day was essentially a workshop concerned with experimental electron microscopy and theoretical modelling of ‘Extreme Nanowires,’ the smallest nanowires that can be formed down to a single atom width, and also discrete molecules formed on a similar scale. The Physics Day included contributions from four Warwick speakers, including two PhD students, UK speakers Prof. Andrei Khlobystov, Dr. Thomas Chamberlain and Dr. Andrew Morris from the Universities of Nottingham, Leeds and Birmingham respectively, and also the distinguished International Speaker Prof. Kazu Suenaga from the AIST in Tsukuba, Japan. This event was also used as a preamble for the EMAG (Electron Microanalysis and Analysis Group) meeting which was taking place in Warwick during the same week (i.e. 6^th-8^th July).

Synthetic diamonds, bioplastics and micro CT scanning in criminal justice were just some of the topics covered at last month’s Physical Sciences Industry Day. The event, which attracted local, national and international businesses, focused on how collaborative industrial partnerships can further businesses’ research and development, as well as lead to meaningful and impactful change for academics, industry and society.