This first semester has a busy program of events for teachers and students.
For teachers, the Physics Teachers’ Conference is less than three weeks away and on the Saturday following a Medical Physics in-service and two Excursion tasters. During the Term 1 holidays, there is an in-service for those beginning their teaching career, returning to physics teaching or have been asked to take a physics class.
For students, there are five Girls in Physics Breakfasts across Melbourne and in regional Victoria, with a sixth planned for Term 3. The VCE lectures at Melbourne University get underway soon as do the Astronomy lectures at Swinburne University.
There are also a diverse range of articles on offer that are full of ideas.
And of course, not forgetting Prof Michelle Simmons as Australian of the Year.
The next meeting of the Vicphysics Teachers’ Network will be at 5pm on Thursday, 8th February at Melbourne Girls’ College All teachers are welcome to attend this or any other meeting. If you would like to attend, please contact Vicphysics
Regards,
Frances Sidari (Pres), Bronwyn Quint (Vice-Pres), Barbara McKinnon (Sec), Terry Tan (Treas) and Dan O’Keeffe (Coord)
Table of Contents
- 2018 Physics Teachers’ Conference: Friday, 16th February, La Trobe University
- Girls in Physics Breakfasts: 6 events in 6 venues across Victoria
- Australian of the Year: Prof Michelle Simmons, quantum physicist
- Calendar of Physics Events
- IOP’s ‘Physics Education’ : Free downloads of selected articles.
- A cheap DC Motor Prac
- Forthcoming events for Students and the General Public
- The Fast Radio Burst Mystery, 6:30pm, Friday, 9th Feb, SwinburneUniversity
- Physics Lectures for VCE Students: Physics of Motion- Why things move and how!, 6pm Thursday, 22nd February, University of Melbourne
- Physics Days at Luna Park: 6th March – 9th March
- Forthcoming events for Teachers
- Medical Physics In-Service, 11am, Saturday, 17th February, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
- Excursion Taster: Australian Synchrotron, 9:00am, Saturday, 17th February
- Excursion Taster: Victorian Space Science Education Centre, 2:30pm, Saturday, 17th February, VSSEC
- Beginning Physics Teachers In-Service, Friday, 13th April, Kew High School
9. Physics News from the Web
a) IceCube tests Standard Model with neutrinos from below
b) Lightning creates radioactive isotopes
c) Theorists identify stable tetraquark
1. 2018 Physics Teachers’ Conference: Friday, 16th February, La Trobe University
The registration form, the program and online registrations are available here .
The program includes:
- An opening address by the Chief Assessor, Andrew Hansen, on this year’s VCE exam,
- A VCAA update by Maria James, Science Manager,
- A keynote address by Dr Eric Thane from Monash University on the Discovery of Gravitational Waves,
- Three sessions of workshops with over 16 workshops in each,
- Excursion tasters on Saturday *, and
- A Medical Physics In-Service * on Saturday morning
The registration fee is $180 for an individual STAV member, $296 for a STAV school subscriber and $322 for a non-STAV member.
* The Excursion tasters and the Medical Physics In-Service can also be booked separately, see items 8a, 8b and 8c below.
2. Girls in Physics Breakfasts: 6 events in 6 venues across Victoria
This year there will be six Girls in Physics Breakfasts, three in different parts of Melbourne and three in regional Victoria in Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong.
The breakfasts are for students in Years 10 to 12. At each breakfast the students will share a table with two or three young women in the early stages of a career in science or engineering. The students have a chance to ask questions about their careers and what study at university is like. Students will be seated with students from other schools. There is also an address by a prominent scientist, who will talk about her area of interest at a level appropriate to her audience.
As student at last year’s event said: ‘I was talking to a guest at my table and her career sounded so amazing. Then I realised that in 8 years that could be me. I got so excited.‘
The Breakfasts are earlier in the year this year to attract Year 10 students prior to their making their Year 11 subject choices. They also have a later start at 7:30am.
This year there also will be an additional optional activity after the breakfast – a hands on practical activity. Each student constructs, tests and keeps a technological device. This year it is a one transistor freezer alarm circuit using a thermistor and an LED.
The Cost per student is $15 with teachers free. There is no extra cost for the additional optional activity. Because of generous funding from the Laby Foundation, a discounted fee of $5 is available to schools with a low ICSEA score. Check the website for details about how to obtain the discount.
Times: The Breakfasts will each start at 7:30am and finish about 9:15am. The additional activity should finish about 10:15am.
Bookings must be made through Trybooking with a credit card. The Trybooking links for each event are on the Vicphysics website.
There is a maximum of six students per school so as to allow more schools to participate.
Dates, Venues and Speakers
- 13th March, Hawthorn Speaker: Dr Sue Barrell, Chief Scientist, Bureau of Meteorology,Topic: Severe weather: How we forecast its impact.
- 28th March, Ballarat Speaker: Dr Elizabeth Hinde, University of Melbourne, Topic: Glow in the dark: Using fluorescence to observe DNA in a living cell.
- 20th April, Sunshine Speaker: Dr Elizabeth Kyriakou, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre,Topic: Biomedical Engineering: Do you want to change the future of medicine?
- 27th April, Bendigo Speaker: Prof Frances Separovic, University of Melbourne, Topic: MRI for Molecules, Biophysics meets Cell Chemistry
- 4th May, Geelong Speaker: Dr Gail Iles, RMIT, Topic: Human spaceflight and science in space
- Late July, Clayton The date and speaker are yet to be finalised.
Check our website for further details and flyers to promote the events in your school. They also contain:
- the address of the venue,
- a biography of the speaker and
- the abstract of her talk.
These events are sponsored by the Laby Foundation, ANSTO, Vicphysics Teachers’ Network, the Victorian Branch of the Australian Institute of Physics, the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Swinburne University, the School of Engineering at Deakin University in Geelong, the College of Engineering and Science at Victoria University, the College of Science, Health and Engineering at La Trobe University, the ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low Energy Electronic Technologies (FLEET), the Faculty of Science and Technology at Federation University and supported by Federal Government’s Inspiring Australia – Inspiring Science Program.
3. Australian of the Year: Prof Michelle Simmons, quantum physicist
Last year when Prof Simmons was announced at NSW’s nominee for the 2018 Australian of the Year, she gave a speech on her background and her research on quantum computing. This website has the video and the transcript of her presentation.
No doubt Prof Simmons will be visiting Victoria a number of times this year, we will keep you informed of her public engagements.
4. Calendar of Physics Events
A calendar of Physics events for the year is on our website . It is located under Events/Forthcoming events. It includes:
- Vicphysics meetings.
- PD events and
- Events and lectures for students
New events will be added as they come to hand.
5. IOP’s ‘Physics Education’ Free downloads of selected articles.
The IOP’s Physics Education journal provides free access to several popular articles. Currently the list includes:
- Let’s have a coffee with the Standard Model of Particle Physics!
- Introducing 12-year-olds to elementary particles
- The warm rich sound of valve guitar amplifiers
The list is further down the page beside ‘Editorial & News‘. Further still down the page under ‘More Editorial & News‘ is a list of articles that are i) ‘most read’ or ii) ‘most cited’. These include:
- Rotating swings: a theme with variations
- How wings work
- The ‘radioactive dice’ experiment: why the ‘half life’ is slightly wrong.
- How to simply demonstrate diamagnetic levitation with pencil lead
- Force, acceleration and velocity during trampoline jumps: a challenging assignment
- Original Research By Young Twinkle Students (ORBYTS): when can students start performing original research?
- Binding blocks: Building a universe one nucleus at a time (under ‘most cited’)
6. A cheap DC Motor Prac
At the Boxing Day Test, just inside the entrances, there were large boxes, full of small electric fans,
free for patrons to take away. The fan had a mini USB connection so it could be run off a mobile phone. The connection was an Apple Lightning connector, which means the metal contacts are exposed. It should not be too difficult to find which two contacts power the motor.
As a guide, the lightning connector is an 8 pin. The pins in a Lightning socket are numbered 1 to 8 from the right, with pin 1 the Ground and pin 5 the Power. So if you hold the cable with the connection point away from you and look at the top set of pins, the Ground is the pin on the far right and the Power is the 5th pin along from the right. It should be possible to tape wires to the pins or use alligator clips.
A low voltage DC power supply could be connected to the motor along with a voltmeter and ammeter to measure the input to the DC motor. A strobe app can be used to measure the output or the blades can be removed and a spindle placed on the shaft which could lift a known mass.
The fan can be purchased on line from eBay and AliExpress for under $2 each, but check postage and handling.
7. Forthcoming events for Students and the General Public
a) The Fast Radio Burst Mystery, 6:30pm, Friday, 9th Feb, Swinburne University
Speaker: Dr Emily Petroff, ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy
Abstract: Most things in the universe happen over millions or even billions of years but some things change on the timescales of human life and can be seen to change in a matter of months, days, or even seconds. These sources are called transients and are some of the most extreme events in the Universe, things like the collapse of a dying star, or a collision of two massive objects.
Humans have been observing astronomical transients for centuries, from supernovae to gamma ray bursts and, most recently, gravitational waves, but recent advances in telescope power and technology mean we’re observing more and more transients each year and even finding new types. In 2007 we discovered a brand new type of transient called fast radio bursts (FRBs), bright radio pulses that last only a few milliseconds. Their origin is one of the newest unsolved mysteries of astronomy but it is clear they are produced in tremendously energetic processes, possibly even billions of light years away.
I will tell the story of their discovery, some of our most exciting new breakthroughs, and how new telescopes in Australia and around the world are poised to answer some of the big questions about FRBs in the next few years.
Venue: Swinburne University, Hawthorn campus, AMDC building, AMDC301 (Enter from Burwood Rd) Map
Registration: For further information and registration, please click on this link . Closes when maximum capacity reached.
**Free astronomy public lecture series in 2018. Share with your friends! The Free Public Lectures begin during in 2009. All audio recordings can be accessed. Check here for details past, present and future.
b) Physics Lectures for VCE Students: Physics of Motion- Why things move and how!, 6pmThursday, 22nd February, University of Melbourne
The now well-established series of “Physics Lectures for VCE Students” are again offered in 2018.
The lectures will be held every three weeks in the Laby Theatre, School of Physics, Melbourne University starting at 6 pm.
Their focus will be on the requirements of the Study design, but will also give students a view of the excitement of Physics as a whole.
The first two lecture in the series is on Thursday, 22nd Feb in the Laby Theatre at MelbournePhysics. A/Prof Roger Rassool will be answering the question ‘Why things move and how!‘ which will include some amazing practical demonstrations of the concepts involved
Up coming lectures will include topics on Thermal Physics and Special Relativity. Youtube videos of last year’s lectures are available here.
c) Physics Days at Luna Park, 6th March – 9th March
The Physics Days at Luna Park will be on Tuesday, 6th March to Friday, 9th March. Bookings are open here . The cost is $25.50 per student. Teachers enter for free. Worksheets are available here.
There has been no confirmation yet of an aerobatic display by a member of the RAAF Roulettes.
Data loggers can be booked for a half day on a basis of one per school. There is no cost. Please email vicphys@vicphysics.org with subject: Dataloggers, with your name, school and day you are going to Luna Park. There are also extra vests available that can hold a student’s mobile phone for the SparkVue app or other datalogging apps. These can also be booked as above.
5. Forthcoming events for Teachers
a) Medical Physics In-Service, 11am, Saturday, 17th February, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
The program will feature a one-hour talk on:
• the physics aspects of the effect of radiation on the human body and of the medical technology at Peter Mac,
• how the technology is used in diagnosis and treatment, as well as
• information on the training and career paths associated with medical physics.
The second hour will be an extensive tour of the facilities at Peter Mac.
Venue: Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, 305 Grattan St, Melbourne VIC
Cost: Nil
To register: Email Vicphysics with your name, school, mobile phone number and the name of the event. A reminder text message will be sent in the evening of the Friday before.
c) Excursion Taster: Australian Synchrotron, 9:00am, Saturday, 17th February
Participants will have a guided tour of the facility as well as an opportunity to see the range of practical activities that are available for secondary students to do as part of an excursion.
Duration: One hour
Venue: Australian Synchrotron, Blackburn Rd, Clayton.
Cost: Nil
To register: Email Vicphysics with your name, school, mobile phone number and the name of the event. A reminder text message will be sent in the evening of the Friday before.
d) Excursion Taster: Victorian Space Science Education Centre, 2:30pm, Saturday, 17th February, VSSEC
The tour explains the various student programs that VSSEC offers. Their programs provide a sensory rich, hands-on, scenario-based science experience for students from primary to senior secondary. There are also programs on Astronomy (co-ordinate systems, solar system and telescopes) and Astrophysics (models of the nature and origin of the Universe, and the life cycle of stars)
Duration: 90 min
Cost: Nil
To register: Email Vicphysics with your name, school, mobile phone number and the name of the event. A reminder text message will be sent in the evening of the Friday before.
d) Beginning Physics Teachers In-Service, Friday, 13th April, Kew High School
Vicphysics will be running a full day in-service on Tuesday, 4th April at Kew High School. The event is free, lunch is provided and travel support is available for country participants.
The event is for:
- Teachers beginning their teaching career,
- Teachers returning to physics teaching and
- Teachers who have been asked by their school to take a VCE Physics class
The program will include:
- Information on course planning, resources, advice of teaching specific topics and suggestions from some of last year’s participants after teaching physics for the first time in 2017,
- Andrew Hansen, Chief Assessor for the Physics exam, from Ringwood Secondary College on Exam advice.
To register please email Vicphysics with subject “Registration: New Physics Teachers” and include in the email, not only your school, contact details and any dietary requirements, but also your reason for applying as this will guide the design of the program. Information about last year’s program ishere.
6. Physics News from the Web
Items selected from the bulletins of the Institute of Physics (UK) and the American Institute ofPhysics.
Each item below includes the introductory paragraphs and a web link to the rest of the article.
a) IceCube tests Standard Model with neutrinos from below
b) Lightning creates radioactive isotopes
c) Theorists identify stable tetraquark
a) IceCube tests Standard Model with neutrinos from below
A study of Earth-transiting neutrinos detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole has determined the interaction cross-section for record-high neutrino energies. The measured value is 1.3 times that predicted by the Standard Model, but known sources of error in the analysis make the result consistent with theory.
Because neutrinos interact with matter only through gravity and the weak force, they are notoriously difficult to capture in laboratory-scale detectors. Experiments like the IceCube observatory can manage it only because of the huge target volumes that they encompass: at IceCube, more than 5000 optical sensors are spread throughout 86 vertical boreholes to monitor a cubic kilometre of ice. When neutrinos interact with nucleons within that volume, they produce muons travelling faster than the local speed of light. The faint flashes of Cherenkov radiation that result can be observed by multiple individual light sensors, revealing the direction from which the neutrino entered the experiment.
b) Lightning creates radioactive isotopes
The first detailed, convincing evidence that lightning strikes can lead to the synthesis of radioactive isotopes in the atmosphere has been unveiled by physicists in Japan. The research, which was initially financed by crowdfunding, follows several previous, inconclusive observations and confirms a theoretical prediction that gamma rays produced during lightning strikes can stimulate a variety of nuclear reactions, releasing neutrons and positrons into the atmosphere.
Gamma rays can be produced by lightning strikes when relativistic electrons, accelerated by strong electric fields, lose energy in collisions with air molecules. Dubbed gamma-ray flashes, these events are usually directed up towards outer space. Indeed, the first detections of gamma rays from lightning were made by satellites. However, scientists have recently discovered that, on rare occasions, the gamma rays can instead shoot down at Earth. Several research groups have detected neutrons or positrons in the atmosphere in the aftermath of lightning strikes. Theoretical models have associated these with the gamma ray-induced production and subsequent decay of radioactive nuclei such as nitrogen-13 and oxygen-15. However, no conclusive evidence had previously been found to confirm this.
c) Theorists identify stable tetraquark
Two independent groups of theorists have predicted the existence of a stable “tetraquark” containing two heavy (bottom) quarks and two light antiquarks. They say that the particle could be detected in a few years’ time at the LHCb experiment on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
Quarks were proposed by Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig in 1964 as the fundamental building blocks of protons, neutrons and other baryons, which contain three quarks, and mesons, made up of a quark and an antiquark. Since then physicists have also studied the possibility of more exotic composites, including tetraquarks, composed of two quarks and two antiquarks, and pentaquarks, which comprise four quarks and an antiquark.
A number of particles resembling tetraquarks have been observed at colliders over the past decade or so, such as the X(3872) particle first detected by the Belle experiment in Japan in 2003. More recently in 2016, the discovery of a tetraquark was claimed by physicists working at Fermilab. However, researchers working at LHCb were not able to confirm the Fermilab result.
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