A trip outback
So today I’m heading off with fellow PhD’er and science communicator Jenny Riesz to visit outback Queensland. We’re going to be doing physics shows and workshops for schools that often miss out on some of the benefits of living close to a university. It’s going to be fabulous week - we’re talking at Charleville School of Distance Education, which is a “School of the Air” for students too far away to go to school each day (remember that in outback Australia, it might be a 100km from your farm to the nearest school!) The students work from written material at home, then have classes and discussions over a two-way radio. I’ve never given a talk like this before (!) so it will be quite challenging and exciting! We’re going to be talking about quantum mechanics - what it is, why it’s weird, and some of the many places where it’s important.
We’re also running workshops on how to build capacitors from film canisters, and giving a talk at the Charleville Cosmos Centre on “A Journey into a Black Hole”! All in all, it should be a great trip - but it does mean that my posting will be a little sporadic for the next week. I probably will have less time for breaking news, but I have a few things I’m going to post - so keep checking in.