Day 5 Up-to-Date At Last!!! or Borough Nite

We are up-to-date at last!!!!!

I should really call this post, 'Borough Night' as really, as everyone who knows me will tell you, this is the night i go out to Borough for a bit of Borough Banter. (You know who you are!)

Since we are all over the world - America, Mexico, Switzerland and Britain I will give a virtual toast to everyone and hope that you guys are all having an excellent time!!!!!!!!!! To the Borough Banter!!!!!!

Anyhow, had two lectures on Particle Physics by Frank Close who did a really good job of making it come alive.... there's going to be a lot of examples i'll be copying from him!!!

I spent the rest of the day building a Cloud chamber, playing with approximately 9,000 Swiss Francs worth of Physics equipment and visiting the Visitor centre called 'Microcosm'.

The Cloud Chamber is incredibly easy to build and again, when i get back i will try it out with as many classes as possible. I'm real chuffed with how many ideas i've been able to take away with me and use to improve my lessons.

(The Cloud Chamber)

Playing around with expensive Physics equipment was next and i won't moan about the lack of funding that we receive to teach Physics, but these were really cool. One set of equipment we were told could be turned into a model of a mini-particle accelerator. How could would it be to have to demonstrate to pupils!!! Unfortunately, they cost over 1,ooo pounds!!!! Ho-hum.

(The Cathode Ray Tube which can also be used as a Particle Accelerator)

I also had the chance to try out a nice Millikan's Oil drop experiment. If only i could take this home with me. But dear Jedi Knights, we will make do with the bits of wood and glass we've got in the department. (Failing that, there are some good applets online!)

(Millikan's Oil Drop Experiment)

I also saw a nice set-up using Einstein's photoelectric effect to measure the value of 'h'. I'll need to think about it and see if i can set-up something similar at school. I will ask Thomas who does at school with LEDs. (The Spectrometer)

The best piece of kit was an electron scattering experiment. This was a cathode ray tube which showed the diffraction pattern when an electron beam is scattered. Until now, i have only seen pictures of this in textbooks. But to see this in real -life really makes the idea of wave-particle duality concrete - if only i could borrow the equipment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Electron Scattering - Wave/Particle Duality!)