Since I seem to be in the habit of writing nigh on 1000 word Blog posts every few weeks, I thought I’d chop this one up into friendly chunks for you to enjoy at your leisure. This is part 2 of 2. Read part 1 here.

Showing off: Me getting my new orange belt from Olympic and World champion Maki Tsukada (I will post photos of things other than judo soon...)

So a world and Olympic champion in Judo has been training with us… More photos at the end of the post!

Other Extracurricular Activities

I’ve had several weekends away in the last few weeks. There was a wonderful (if exhausting) weekend in Cambridge with the choir. This was mainly to rehearse, but also to have a nice time away together. It’s a lovely city and an enormous contrast to London, reminding me why I applied to go to university there a few years ago. I must say, it’s a quite a contrast to London and imperial.

The whole place feels much smaller and focussed around the colleges and the university. Imperial is more one of many focal points in a massive city filled with focal points. Of course, this means that there are lots of focal points (national art galleries, museums, a mind-boggling selection of entertainment venues…) around you all the time. Sometimes it feels like being at the centre of the world.

I also went home for the third time this term, to go and refuel (both in terms of food and spirit) with my family.

Elsewhere, I’ve joined a Confirmation group at the main Catholic Chaplaincy near UCL. It’s really great, and I think I’ll have to write some more about it as part of a general comment on the (excellent) London chaplaincy services in the near future.

Physics

“So, everything is great! But how about your physics degree?” I hear you ask. Well, physics is ticking along. At the moment it feels like more of a day to day job than one of the great passions of my life, but I think that’s because unlike at A-Level, I don’t have other things to compare it with. Problem sheets feel like a chore rather than being immediately interesting. Passion clearly needs rediscovering, and it’s a problem the department is, pleasingly, trying to fix.

This is, I think, a symptom experienced by many in the middle of a long degree, rather than any kind of black mark against physics or Imperial! At the end of the day, I maintain that physics is hard but ultimately rewarding. To give an example: learning about quantum mechanics has felt difficult and overwhelming at times, but there is a palpable sense of satisfaction when one steps back and examines the entirety and the implications of what has been learnt. Perhaps I need to do more “This is Awesome” posts about physics!

So, to summarise: Choir is joyous and going to be much of my life next year, Judo is painful and invigorating, my family and friends are beacons of awesomeness, and physics is fascinating if occasionally draining.

- Reuben

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Midnight snowball fight anyone?

It’s been a busy few weeks since my last post. Two weeks ago I fulfilled a lifelong ambition to visit the Royal Albert Hall by going to see Cirque du Soleil (a very impressive show and fantastic seats for just £25 thanks to some haggling by a a friend) as a halls of residence trip. Last week I organised my own trip with fellow hall senior Aysha, taking over 20 students to The Comedy Store to see a hilarious improvisation show. And last week it snowed twice, triggering much childlike glee. (See photos below the rant)

As previously mentioned: we have deckchairs!

Holbein and Willis Jackson (HWJ) Halls of Residence have also started their yearly ritual of showing every Six Nations Rugby game on the projector in the common room, complete with deck chairs, free beers and snacks for all. There are some things I will definitely miss when I eventually leave HWJ.

In choir, Verdi’s magnificent Requiem is coming along nicely, and I’m thoroughly looking forward to a weekend away in Cambridge with fellow choristers for banter and rehearsing in 2 weeks time.

Oh, and memes have taken over facebook.

In the interests of balance, it’s also that time of the year when I’ve started to get a little jaded with physics work…

Reuben Rant

Feel free to skip the below (I’ve helpfully indicated where it ends, and added some editorial balance afterwards), it’s more therapeutic for me to feel like I’m feeding back to the department than anything else.

The physics department here is overall pretty good and we are clearly being taught to a high standard. In terms of work, they have piled it on: Extra work for labs has taken the usual exorbitant amount of time: there’s masses of data analysis to be done, things to be written up, and then at the end of the four week experiment, a mere 2 days to finish all analysis and write a four page report. Much as I appreciate that working to tight deadlines is an important skill to master, having to stay up until 7am to get a report done is a little over the top… but perhaps I’m too much of a perfectionist, 2-3am seems to be more the norm.

There has also been a big assessed problem sheet to work on (taking up much of a weeks worth of spare time set aside for working), and each lecture course (of which there are currently 4 running) provides 1 or 2 problem sheets to do each week. Then there are lectures and things to go to as well of course… I have friends that do nothing extracurricular, and even they are struggling to keep up, but we are all learning.

This is all well and good, I know from last year that all work can be caught up with once the Easter holidays start and there is much more free time to study. The problem is that academic tutors (one of mine in particular) seem to be blissfully ignorant to this, and consistently complain that we don’t do enough of the problem sheets, on top of the extra work that they set us to do anyway…  Of course, I understand why they press us. There are a huge number of people that simply do not do enough work, and will not endeavour to catch up. These are the people that barely pass their exams, or commonly find they have to retake. It’s just disheartening to have a tutor getting frustrated with me for not doing enough work, when I know that I do all the work I can.

End Rant – Positivity Below

And that’s enough of all that. I should remind the reader that I hold Imperial in high regard overall (as stated previously) and this is just a niggle. If the above were to become a serious problem, I know that I could go and talk to my personal tutor and he would do whatever he could to help (my personal tutor is really nice), or use one of the many other channels there are of feeding back to the department (which I might just do). To give an example of feedback in action: Last term, half the year had one day fewer to get the lab reports done and our excellent year reps managed to get us an extra day to make it fair.

Most of the time I don’t use this blog to complain, which should indicate to you that most of the time I’m fairly happy. Time for some pictures of snow!

Read the rest of this entry »

The above words from the front of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy* seem apt.

I thought it was about time I wrote about the interview process for those of you that have applied for physics at Imperial or are thinking of applying. Being a top university with a top physics department, there are far more applicants for physics than there are places (about 250 new undergraduate places a year). So, as well as requiring glowing grades, the department likes to interview all prospective students to whom it is thinking of offering a place.

My (not very terrifying) Experience

The first thing to make clear is the the inteviews here are not at all like Oxbridge interviews (which, from my experience applying for natural sciences, are more of a verbal exam).

I had applied to Imperial on a bit of a whim. I knew that it was meant to be very good but I was nervous about living in london and having to be much more independent (the cost, and learning to cook immediately for example) than somewhere collegiate like Durham or Cambridge. After my interview, I liked the place so much that Imperial became a firm favourite.

To start off the day you’re meant to get shown around the college by a nice physics student, get to know the other interviewees and get lunch. That’s the official “you deciding if the college is for you” bit. Or so I’m told… on the day of my interview all trains into London Paddington were delayed by over 2 hours meaning I missed everything before lunch. All was apparently well, I rang the nice lady in the physics admissions office who encouraged me not to worry and assured me that I wouldn’t miss the business end of the day. My nerves, however, seemed not to be listening.

After my arrival I was shown around the department by the very friendly Academic who would be interviewing us. This was all quite informal, there was no expectation to have dressed up in a suit for example (Feel free to if you want though. The point is that judgement is not meant to be made on the basis of how you have dressed. Make sure you feel comfortable for the situation, be that in Jeans and a T shirt or a shirt and tie).

The academic was keen to talk to us about the department as he showed us around, answer any questions and explain the structure of the course.

The Interviews

The interviews themselves started after a cup of tea. We had a group discussion about the course and physics in general, then individually spent time with the Academic. I must stress that by this point I was far less nervous than I had been upon arrival. There are some very friendly members of staff here!

We discussed why I wanted to study physics, what I might want to do in the future, talked about my personal statement a little and ended up spending some time discussing our shared interest in Biology (which was somewhat unexpected). We eventually did do a few more “academic” questions: I was asked to sketch a graph and describe what I thought was going on in a particular physical situation. It was all pretty straight forward to be honest, I reasoned through what I was doing and was given a few pointers if I seemed to have gotten stuck. At the end I even asked how he though I had gotten on (a little unorthodox, I know, but the interviewer really was very nice!) and was reassured that, whilst it wasn’t the interviewer’s final decision whether I got a place, all was well.

Some final thoughts

I really was tremendously nervous. To the extent that I struggled to eat anything all morning before arriving. What I’d like to get across is there’s really not a huge amount to get nervous about. The interviewers know that this could well be your first ever interview in any context. If you’re interested in physics or science in general, then just let it come across! You’re almost certainly more than capable of answering any tough questions you are asked if you’re getting the sorts of grades to be thinking of applying here. Bear in mind that if they’ve given you an interview, they’re probably already pretty interested in your application. You’ll be fine.

Oh and Happy New Year!

- Reuben

*I could argue that it’s a comedy classic, but I like to think I’m allowed to be occasionally nerdy.

That crazy bunch at MIT have been busy. They’ve made a camera with a shutter speed so quick it can be used to see a single light pulse from a laser travelling through a medium. They’ve used their camera to “film” a light pulse travelling through a bottle. All is explained below:

Now they just have to work out a way to make the videos cat related and they’ll have an internet sensation on their hands.

I remember when we were planning for A-Level projects at sixth form: one chap in the class came in with a grand plan to try and measure the speed of light by filming a torch being switched on in front of a ruler, then go through the  video frame by frame to watch the light… When asking if it would work, the teacher and I simultaneously said “no”. If only we had seen this setup and the chap had a ton of cash to hand, we wouldn’t have been quite so quick to suggest he think of something else. One must keep an open mind at all times…

-Reuben

(found via Engadget)

I was very nearly on the BBC News at 6 Oclock today.

There are some moments where it becomes clear just how lucky I am to be studying at somewhere like imperial. If you’ve been keeping up with the news you might have heard that there was a big announcement from the Large Hadron Collider (one must keep the d and r in the correct order…) about the Higgs Boson*.

All day people around the physics department could be heard discussing the possible news. This was helped by an email sent around to all physics undergraduates:

“FOR YOUR INFORMATION:

My friend Tim doing his best "This is very interesting" face for the BBC.

The BBC are filming the Higgs Boson update between 1 and 3pm today, Lecture Theatre 3, so pop along if you are interested.”

A live stream of the announcement (it turned out to be more of a lecture) was to be shown and the BBC would watch our interested smiling faces taking in the wonderful discoveries.

The hall was packed.

There were a few technical hitches at the beginning as the video kept stopping. It became apparent that this was CERN’s fault, as someone announced that “Fermilab are having the same problem” – seemingly keeping in instant message contact with their US colleagues.

Eventually a person with a skype feed came down and plugged in their laptop, letting the eager crowd take in what was going on.

Unfortunately the sound quality meant we couldn’t really tell what was being said, but the slides gave us enough information to work out that the ATLAS experiment had nearly discovered the Higgs Boson (with 2σ – that’s 95.4% – certainty that it wasn’t just statistical fluke).

Klaus looking like he's not paying any attention to proceedings (he was apparently following what was going on with his laptop) - as seen on TV.

Satisfied that we had been sufficiently filmed and that ATLAS had done a pretty good job, we left before the second half of the announcement (from the other experiment looking for the Higgs – CMS – it’s results turned out to be pretty similar) to go be manly and hit the gym. Unfortunately the BBC elected to use footage from after we had left, hence not quite being on the news. My friend Klaus could be seen however; staring at his laptop, clearly in a world of his own.

Still, the excited atmosphere (there were plenty of high energy physicist who work on the experiments present) was great to be part of and the announcements interesting. Only at Imperial eh?

Ah, what a big a geek this all makes me, but why not? I’m studying physics, I might as well embrace it. One of the lovely things about being here is that if you want to be geeky about something, you can, and others will probably join in. And if you don’t, almost everyone is pretty nice and most defy stereotypes about social interaction ability.

Other news:

In other news, the Hall’s Cold War themed Christmas party will be getting in the way of me finishing an essay (due friday) this evening, I’m singing in the Imperial College carol concert on Wednesday and I am no longer ill. I’m Thoroughly looking forward to going back home on Saturday to see all the lovely people there.

Reuben rant:

*I really wish that the media would stop calling it the “God particle” without any proper clarification. It’s a name that has the potential to suggest to the uninitiated that this Particle Physics theory has something to do with God and religion.  As ever in physics, it has nothing to do with either. The name “The God Particle” might be seen as a bit of a joke among physicists, but anything that has the potential to add to the false perception of divisions between physics and religion does nothing to aid the public understanding of Science.

Now, back to that essay I’m meant to be writing.

- Reuben

Sadly we couldn't find any animals shiny or patient enough to make holograms of.

It turns out physics is awesome.

Not that I didn’t know that, but in the last few weeks of labs I got to prove that to myself by playing around in a dark room saying “OOH! Look at that!” as we made holograms. Appreciating the beauty of nature can certainly be very satisfying, but little quite beats the instant gratification of seeing the etherial image of one’s wristwatch floating in mid air behind a transparent sheet of photographic film.

To make a hologram:

1. Go into a very dark room.

2. Switch on LASERs with a key (whilst pretending to be a bond villain).

3. Wear big green goggles to keep the LASER light out of your eyes (particularly when sitting – the plonker that designed the dark room thought it would be a great idea to have a desk that puts a seated person’s eyes exactly at LASER beam level).

4. Shout at your mates when they accidentally reflect LASER beams around the room.

5. Be thankful when the demonstrator (the person who assesses you, answers questions and is meant to know how how the experiment works) reveals the LASER has been downgraded making it unlikely to cause serious eye damage.

6. Spend lots of time working out how holograms work (Interested physicists: it’s to do with creating an interference pattern on the film that records the phase of the light from the object being imaged).

7. Use your awesome physics skills (or follow the instructions in the lab script) to arrange lenses, beam splitters, mirrors, and the thing you’re making a hologram of. Do this with the aim of getting a hologram at the place you’re going to put photographic film.

8. Block the LASER beam, put expensive special transparent photographic film in its holder then unblock the laser beam for 3-5 seconds.

9. Develop your film (whilst pretending to be an old school photographer)

10. Put your film back in the laser beam and… “WOW I CAN SEE MY WATCH! YOU CAN TELL WHAT MAKE IT IS AND EVERYTHING.” (or more commonly, “Oh, we’ve overdeveloped/underexposed the film.”)

11. Feel awesome.

12. Repeat steps 1-11 using a variety of shiny objects (coins, keys etc.)

The holograms are very difficult to take photos of, below is a video I made on my phone which gives you some idea of what they look like. With the naked eye, the detail is much more pronounced than shown in the video.

We also made some white light holograms of coins. These are like the holograms you get on tickets and bank cards. Unfortunately these seem to be almost impossible to take a photo of, but if you know me then I’ll gladly show you one. Instead, here’s a picture of the watch in the above video:

If you don’t know me then get a piece of transparent plastic and imagine seeing the green image of a coin floating behind it. If you turn the hologram over, you get the strange effect of the things that were sticking out looking like they stick in, as though it’s the imprint of the object in something like a piece of blu-tac. It’s very odd.

All this ignores all the time spent sitting in a dark room trying to understand the theory of how holograms work, writing in the lab book, and the 2 weeks previously spent trying to get a temperamental inteferometry experiment to work… but still, wow! Holograms!

So yes, physics is awesome.

- Reuben