Written by: Dino Constanti, Head of Physics |
On Tuesday 18th September, Framlingham’s Physics Department took some Year 11 Physicists to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge for the Physics at work exhibition. Six 20 minute presentations later they had a more informed idea of where STEM subjects can take them in the future.
The selection of talks included:
– ‘many problem quantum dynamics’ with laser light tweezers used to tie a knot in strands of DNA,
– the National Physical Laboratory who showed us the importance of measuring things correctly but more significantly froze stuff with liquid nitrogen;
– a Cambridge research group who are regularly required to use explosions to study how things fracture.
The most popular talk was by Mathworks who create algorithms to simulate space missions and demonstrated self-balancing robots. The fact that they also gave away the most merchandise had nothing to do with their popularity, I’m sure. Cambridge’s own Isaacphysics group broke down the steps of problem-solving and somehow tricked the students into solving the mystery of the self-levitating table.
The importance of STEM and the diverse range of careers that can be accessed with these subjects is very timely with key choices for our GCSE students.
