*dusts off blog*

Hello! Yes, I am still alive. I have now finished my exams and just have to write the rest of the lab report for my summer project – more on that after I demonstrate my feelings towards the exams via the medium of emoticons (because if I write any more I may get the urge to curl up in a box for a while).

Maths

Mechanics and Relativity

Problem Solving

Vibrations and Waves, Structure of Matter and Quantum Physics

Electricity and Magnetism

Maths Analysis

Next year, interpretive dance.

Now, moving on to the summer project! All first year physicists (except the Physics with Musical Performance lot) do a project in the summer term and present it at the Physics Open Days. My partner Isabella (with whom I also watched Lord of the Rings and Star Wars – my nerd card now stands less of a chance of being revoked) and I did a project entitled “Chaos and Stability in the Solar System” – we used computer languages C and C++ to simulate the motion of an asteroid and look for chaos. Computing projects are less popular, both as choices and on the open days, so we were able to do a large chunk of our lab reports during the open days. I didn’t get a chance to see the experimental projects upstairs, but heard they were very exciting! Though not as exciting as creating the solar system in your computer of course

This Tuesday is a Global Day of Solidarity for Troy Davis, who has been on death row in Georgia, USA, for 18 years. On the 23rd he will be having an evidentiary hearing and here at Imperial we will be helping to create a photo petition in his support, so please come along to the JCR between 12 and 2 to “lend your face for justice”! There’s a vigil going on from 5pm to 7pm outside the American Embassy too, so go along to that too if you have the time to spare!

This coming week, in addition to Tuesday’s events, I will be staying in London – I could have gone home, but why would you want to if you could have a free week here?  I will be going to a couple of concerts (Scissor Sisters and They Might Be Giants – thank you, I know my taste in music is terrible), and if anyone has any other ideas about cool things to do let me know.

I will be out of the country for half of July (at the EuroScience Open Forum in Turin, then at CERN for a week because of my EUCYS prize), but this summer I will definitely be writing “The Imperial Fresher’s Guide to the Galaxy”. If there’s anything you would like me to cover (I’ll do things like academics, social, financial, etc.), let me know! Having seen the 2011 prospectus, perhaps I should have done it sooner, but hopefully you will all still find it useful.

Finally, if you’re currently (or going to be) an Imperial physicist and you’re interested in writing or editing, please join the group I have created for Schrödinger’s Cat, the department newspaper I hope to start, and contribute ideas or sign up for things.  I did an interview with Simon Singh a few weeks ago that will hopefully go online and in the first issue.

I can’t think of anything else, and I’ve procrastinated from writing my lab report for too long. See you on the other side!

This isn’t really Imperial related, but today is Ada Lovelace Day – according to http://findingada.com/ it is “an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science”. So, I thought, why not join in too?

Of course, we shouldn’t celebrate women scientists for their gender – we should celebrate their work. Though this doesn’t make choosing someone to talk about any easier. I thought about it for a while – reading about Lisa Randall’s work got me into physics; I recently re-read “The Dark Lady of DNA” having discovered a blue plaque round the corner from here proclaiming Rosalind Franklin once lived there; heck, there are plenty of inspirational women in science here at Imperial (as the recent We Are Science exhibition demonstrated) – and eventually decided to talk about Lise Meitner.

I consider Lise Meitner inspirational not just because of her work – and that alone was worthy of great acclaim. In addition to discovering several isotopes and the Auger effect (independently of Auger), she was part of the team that discovered nuclear fission. She is often singled out as being unfairly overlooked by the Nobel Committee. Of course, her work had huge implications for nuclear warfare, but she refused to work on the Manhattan Project. As an Austrian Jew she also had to flee Nazi Germany, eventually settling in Sweden. Her epitaph reads: “a physicist who never lost her humanity”.

One day I decided to write a poem for every element of the periodic table – meitnerium was the only one I actually did. No, you can’t read it.

On a completely unrelated note, I will be Chair/President of Amnesty next year! Hopefully I help can continue the great work that everyone’s done this year and do some new exciting things too. I’m planning on writing some “feature” type posts on here soon, so watch out for them!

Well, I’ve had a fairly eventful few days!

ICSF AGM OMGWTFBBQ
Thursday was the Sci Fi Society’s Annual General Meeting, where new committee members are elected, the year is reviewed and the constitution discussed. I stood for the position of Fanzine Editor and was surprisingly elected! It was just a relief really not to be beaten by Miranda the Dalek, who stood for every election (as RON – Re-Open Nominations).

Felix
I wrote an article about the Amnesty society’s involvement in Fair Trade Fortnight and it got into Felix! You can see it in last week’s edition, in the Clubs and Societies section.

Astronauts
On Friday I was lucky enough to attend an event where the speakers were Neil Armstrong, Jim Lovell and Gene Cernan.

Yeah. That Neil Armstrong. That Jim Lovell. That Gene Cernan.

When I say lucky I mean lucky – first I gave my ticket to a friend so she could go instead, then when I was taking her there I headed towards the wrong place on the tube, then got off at the right stop by sheer fluke, then got directed to Burlington House (where the Royal Society of Chemistry, Royal Astronomical Society and a few others are) instead of the Royal Society by two people, then got the right directions off a nice man with an iPhone, then thought I had got us lost and got upset, then happened upon the right place, then managed to get a seat outside, watching the live feed!

I took notes, and I will probably write something lengthier if people want to read it. I think the experience summed up best in my friend’s insistence that it couldn’t have been real. I wish I could have stayed longer to mingle, but it was so crowded you could barely move, so we bid a hasty escape to freedom and Nandos.

Saturday
My friend stayed the night and on Saturday we went round the Science Museum – I think my favourite section (besides the gift shop) is Exploring Space, and all the history of medicine bits (despite them making me feel a bit woozy). Cosmos and Culture was disappointing though. In the evening I managed to cook for her (and she is still alive!)

Ready Steady Cook
My hall, Fisher, ran a Ready Steady Cook competition – we were given twelve ingredients, plus a mystery ingredient, and could make whatever we liked! My team made the following:

• Starter: Butternut squash soup with honey roasted pumpkin seeds
• Main: Spaghetti Carbonara
• Dessert: Chocolate surprise! (dubious chocolate cake that ended up turning rock solid, plus melted white chocolate and a random raspberry on the top)

We won Most Original! Last night we used part of our prize to make cocktails, which eventually degenerated into smoothies (which is what usually happens if you put me, fruit and a hand blender together).

Catching up
If I had one word of advice for prospective freshers it would be this: don’t miss a lecture unless absolutely necessary. (That and don’t buy fabric softener instead of detergent like I did. But more the lecture thing.) However, in the past couple of days I’ve managed to get through half of my E&M course, so hopefully by the end of this term I’ll have caught up on all my work!

The second Big Bang Fair was last week too – I was hoping to go as a judge, but couldn’t, and anyway had a good reason not to go just for fun (besides the cost of train tickets: see above). It made me feel all nostalgic about my science fair attending days!

And now to bed.

First of all, thank you to everyone for their lovely messages after my last blog! It’s really great to know that people care about how I’m doing.

So, the deadline for the Science Challenge has passed… what better time to blog about the Science Challenge?

If you didn’t already know, the Science Challenge is a competition run by the Royal College of Science Union and is open to Imperial students and secondary school students. You write an essay answering a given question in 800 words with the chance to win some very cool prizes – including £4000 in cash for the first prize winning Imperial student. When I first heard about the contest, and the fact that there was a question about life on other planets, I considered entering.

Okay, so probably the main reason I didn’t was lack of time and not wanting to make a fool of myself, but I was also swayed by the fact that Shell are one of the major sponsors, which created somewhat of a moral dilemma. As a member of the college Amnesty International society I’ve campaigned against Shell and their practices in the Niger Delta – we even presented a petition to a representative of Shell at the Careers Fair and interviewed them for Felix. It got me thinking about how far it would be okay for me to benefit from the support of a company whose practices were considered to be unethical and if it was, where should I draw the line?

Should I refuse to use Shell oil, full stop? It’s easy to not buy Nestle chocolate bars because of their dubious ethics, but am I meant to ask the driver of every vehicle I use if they use Shell Oil and get out if they don’t throw me out first?

Should I enter a competition sponsored by Shell, where I might profit to the tune of £4000? My answer might be that I had no chance of winning, but the principle still stands. Am I showing support for an unethical company or am I allowed to forget about that side of things?

A few years from now, should I accept or refuse sponsorship or a job from any company I consider to be unethical? Will there ever be a time where I’m forced to sacrifice my ideals for my own sake?

Alternatively, am I just overthinking all of this and getting worked up over nothing?

I don’t want to boycott Shell – I’d rather put my energies into helping raise awareness of their practices so they eventually do ‘clean up their act’ (as much as one person can, anyway). As a scientist, of course, you are supposed to be objective and not swayed by your own opinions when you do your work. Does a refusal to work for a company you don’t agree with count as bias? If I were to do research and discover something that conflicted with my own beliefs, of course I’d still publish it – and in this case I have read accounts from both sides of the story – but… argh!

Anyone have any thoughts? It would be great to start a bit of a debate here!

This evening has been a very University Challenge-y one.

1) The 2010 team, of which I am one fifth, practised answering questions and took it in turns to be Paxman. Answers ranged from “integration [snort indicating how incredibly simple that question was]” to “Eminem”. A well-timed mobile ringtone (sounding suspiciously like a gong) made the session all the more authentic.

2) We went to the (packed) Union bar to watch Imperial play Edinburgh in the first of two quarterfinals for Imperial. The match was going brilliantly – accompanied by cheers, boos and chants of “HEALY! HEALY!” – when, a minute before the end, disaster! The picture disappeared, to be replaced by a notice informing us that no signal was being received! I can only assume, unless Edinburgh managed to answer a shed-load of questions in the last minute, that Imperial triumphed – in which case, congratulations to them.

In other news, I’m considering changing back to the Theoretical Physics course for which I originally applied. This is because hearing my own attempts at speaking German is starting to get painful.

…I’d remember to blog every once in a while.

So, I’ve now been here at Imperial for eight weeks.

*rubs eyes*

THAT’S RIGHT. EIGHT WEEKS.

I believe Alan Bean’s expression in this photo sums up my mental state at the moment.

D: (courtesy of NASA)

Really, I think the key here is getting back into the swing of being really well organised. I should put that on my to-do list. Now, where did I leave it…

At the end of last week, us first years finished with two of our lecture courses: Linear Algebra and Functions. If anyone who’s thinking of applying is reading this, I should explain them a little. Linear Algebra is all about matrices and vectors and things, and Functions is pretty much a review of A-Level Maths and Further Maths with a little extra stuff chucked in for good measure. It’s all good. Hopefully, young wannabe fresher, you too will get cool lecturers who tell jokes about chemists and make bets with the class over whether an equation is linear or not.

I spent most of the past weekend working on a lab report for an experiment for measuring the speed of light. I’ve been informed that I will learn at least five different ways to measure the speed of light while I am here. Joy upon joys. It’s not that bad, honest, even if you’re as clumsy as me and everything goes completely wrong (believe me, there have been plenty of times where I’ve cursed my past self for not choosing maths). Word of warning: don’t leave the lab report to the last minute. Sleepy labs because most people stayed up late and/or got up early to frantically finish their reports = rubbish.

Once I’d done the report it was straight back to work on the 500 word topical review I had to write for tomorrow’s seminar (it’s about whether neutrinos could be a candidate for dark matter), as well as an essay for German entitled “Ein unvergesslicher Tag” (“an unforgettable day”). Of course, there have also been problem sheets to do, plus the sword of Damocles that is NaNoWriMo. This Monday and Wednesday were also lost to University Challenge tryouts and a talk at the Human Rights Action Centre on the case of Troy Davis respectively. I also spent my Wednesday afternoon at my Pimlico Connection placement, where I (among other things) got badly beaten at Connect Four by kids half my age. This weekend I will try not to spend all my time practising playing it.

[Pictures will come when they get put on Facebook by Amnesty ]

So, I spent my weekend at the Amnesty International Student Conference 2009, held at the Human Rights Action Centre near Old Street – what a great coincidence it was held in London when I’ve just moved here this year! Students from universities all over the country (and some from around the world too) gathered to share ideas and learn about Amnesty’s campaigns.

We were all given the chance to attend two workshops on Saturday. The first one I opted for was on Demand Dignity, Amnesty’s latest campaign aimed at combating the human rights violations that go hand in hand with poverty. We learned about the situation in the Deep Sea Settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, where 7000 residents already in poverty live in constant fear of illegal forced evictions. Discussions about what sort of problems the residents face and how they can be solved took place, culminating in the realisation that all the problems are interlinked and have poverty and government corruption at their root. Rather than just sending money, Demand Dignity hopes to empower and educate people, and also lobby governments to make changes for the better.

The second workshop I took part in was on the death penalty, specifically the case of Troy Davis, who has been on Death Row in Georgia for 20 years. He is charged with shooting dead an off-duty policeman, but his conviction rested solely on witness testimonies with no physical evidence and since his trial seven out of the nine witnesses have withdrawn or changed their statements – some claim they were forced into testifying against Troy. The conviction appears to have also been racially motivated. Recently he was granted a chance to prove his innocence, and this hearing will take part in front of the Supreme Court in January. The woman giving the workshop, Kim Manning-Cooper, visited Troy on Death Row, and was incredibly passionate about getting justice for him – and, of course, the victim of the crime that was committed, Mark McPhail. His family have campaigned tirelessly on his behalf – his sister will be giving a talk in London next week, which I will be attending. In the workshop, we came up with campaign ideas, and some of them were so good that Kim told us she’d try and incorporate them in Amnesty’s official campaign against the death penalty.

Five different plenaries took place: Demand Dignity, which discussed the human rights violations caused by Shell’s activities in the Niger Delta; I Am An Activist, which focused on what it means to be an activist and featured the case of Troy Davis; The Right To Water, about the restriction of access to clean water in the Gaza Strip; Stop Violence Against Women, looking at the use of rape in conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo; and Burma ’88 Generation Students Group, which looked at the suppression of human rights by the junta in Burma. All the plenaries were incredibly compelling, but highlights included hearing the experiences of a former prisoner of conscience in Buma first hand, as well as a student who’d studied both in Burma and the UK; a phone call from Martina Correia, Troy Davis’s sister; and sending a message of solidarity to Justine Bihamba, a campaign against sexual violence in the DRC who unfortunately couldn’t be at the conference.

On Saturday night came the conference campaign action – this year focusing on Shell’s activities in the Niger Delta.  We marched from the Human Rights Action Centre to Hoxton Square and back, in a procession with banners, candles and a giant “pipeline”. I helped carry one of the banners in what were fairly windy conditions, something I’m still feeling the effect of… Plenty of signatures were collected, and it was a really successful event. There was also an AGM and elections to the Student Action Network Committee, as well as the Conference Part and Raise-Off Awards (where awards for the best fundraising student groups were given out).

It was incredible to be at an event where everyone was so passionate about human rights. Imperial has no politics or law students, so it might be considered less equipped to be concerned about Amnesty, and certainly our group is smaller than a lot of other universities’. Still, those of us from Imperial Amnesty that attended the conference came back with lots of ideas for spreading the word at our university. Watch this space!

Hello, interwebs.

I ought to have posted sooner – I see a lot of my fellow bloggers have – but the grand opening of Imperial’s 2009-10 Student Blogs has happened in the busiest week I’ve had so far:

1. I went up to Lincoln yesterday to talk at the regional Nuffield Celebration Evening – couldn’t work on the train there because I was so nervous, and couldn’t work on the way back because it was very late at night
2. I had to come back to halls this morning because I doubted my ability to get through the afternoon’s lectures without dying, thus missing this evening’s “Human Spaceflight: Science or Spectacle?” talk and the ICSF Musical Extravaganza
3. I’m on week two of NaNoWriMo and have officially hit a brick wall
4. I have the Amnesty Student Conference this weekend (I have not yet succumbed to the infamous Imperial apathy)

Add this to doing work, since it would be good if I didn’t fail completely. Ah well – at least I’ll have a lot to blog about!

Since we’re now in week six (WEEK SIX?!) of term, my next few entries will talk about what I’ve got up to so far. It’s been awfully exciting. Look forward to it.