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Sophie Jackson
Upper Sixth
Hallward's House

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The Physics of Fun

“The Physics of Fun”, presented by David Richardson, proved a strong start to the Michaelmas term’s long but enjoyable stint of Sixth Form lectures. Whilst physics is by no means one of my favourite subjects particularly after doing it at GCSE, the talk was certainly captivating and “fun”. Mr Richardson spoke with such passion and enthusiasm that the audience were instantly won over. Throughout the numerous topics touched on within the lecture, he made sure everyone participated and took on an active role. During his power point, he showed on screen, several optical illusions. We were made to stare at this black and white circular pattern that seemed to be rotating like cogs in a clock, and then after a time to look into our neighbour’s eyes, the crowd screamed in unison as our neighbour’s eyes appeared to be shrinking into their heads. Mr Richardson told us not to worry and that both our brain and eyes were just trying to make sense of those rotating circles that they had been focused on for so long.

He went on to explain the main concept and background research behind the current, controversial “Hadron collider”. As well as describing the importance of the experiment which was to discover the nature of dark matter and dark energy, he discussed the possible reasons why gravity is so much weaker than the other three fundamental forces, electromagnetism, strong interaction (nuclear) and weak interaction (also nuclear). Despite being quite a demanding and complex topic, it was made digestible and comprehensible.

I have to say though; he really pulled out the stops for the finale, where he performed a series of potentially dangerous experiments. Most consisted of combusting extremely flammable chemicals, for example metal oxides, which burnt with majestic coloured flames of scarlet, emerald, azure and gold.

Last of all he used a flaming torch to ignite a hydrogen balloon; at this point several eyes darted nervously towards the fire extinguisher in the corner which added to the already tense atmosphere, whilst people waited for the balloon to go up. There was a deep boom, with an explosion of heat and vibrations, as the potential energy was released in a ball of fire. The lecture certainly ended with a bang!

8 October 2008

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