Archive for TEDX

Punch and Judy meet Quantum Technology

Posted in The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , , on June 28, 2013 by telescoper

It’s an Open Day here on campus, and there’s quite a crowd of potential students and parents gathering in the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences here at the University of Sussex to find out a bit more about the School in advance of making decisions about where to apply next year.

I noticed the other day that quite a few of these have appeared on campus over the last few days:

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Apparently they’re information points manned by various helpers to help visitors find their way around the place. When I first saw this one, I thought it was a Punch and Judy box, so assumed that there was some sort of conference of Punch and Judy performers going on. That wouldn’t be inappropriate for a University campus, actually, because the traditional name for a Punch & Judy puppeteer is a “Professor”. Not a lot of people know that.

Anyway, none of that is really relevant to what I wanted to post today. I stumbled across this video featuring Winfried Hensinger (one of my colleagues from the Department of Physics & Astronomy within the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences). I thought it would be fun to share it here, just to give an idea of some of the work that’s going on here outside my own speciality of astrophysics. I hope this will complement the real open day with a mini virtual open day on the blog.

Winfried is Reader in Quantum, Atomic and Optical Physics at the University of Sussex and he works in the group we generally call “AMO” (Atomic, Molecular and Optical). In this TEDX lecture he talks about the future of quantum computers and the role the team he is part of, at Sussex University, plays as they develop large scale quantum computers using ions cooled to extremely low temperatures using lasers. Enjoy!

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Sathya’s Cosmic Sirens

Posted in The Universe and Stuff, Uncategorized with tags , , , on January 7, 2013 by telescoper

Bit busy today so I thought I’d just post this talk by Cardiff’s own Prof. Bangalore Sathyaprakash at last year’s TEDX event in Cardiff.
The title is Cosmic Sirens although given that the topic is gravitational waves I hope that “sirens” isn’t intended to mean those entirely mythical entities that lure unsuspecting PhD students to their ultimate destruction…

Anyway, here’s the blurb:

In 1916 Einstein predicted that dynamical mass distribution generates ripples in the very fabric of spacetime that propagates outwards at the speed of light.

For over two decades B.S. Sathyaprakash (Sathya for his family and friends) is engaged in research to detect these ripples called gravitational waves, from cataclysmic cosmic events such as exploding stars, colliding black holes and the big bang. His personal goal is to observe and understand black holes and gravity using gravitational radiation. He is the head of the gravitational physics group at Cardiff University — a centre for modelling astronomical sources of gravitational radiation, discovering innovative algorithms to search for this radiation and analyzing data from gravitational-wave detectors using massive computer clusters.

Although there is firm indirect evidence that certain astronomical systems do emit gravitational waves, so far no one has detected them directly. Sathya and his team are part of a worldwide effort, called the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, to detect these elusive waves using kilometer long laser interferometers in the US, Europe and Japan. Recently, Sathya helped develop the science case for building such a detector in India. He has been involved in the European design study of a third generation underground detector with a 30 km baseline called the Einstein Telescope, chairing the group that developed the science case for this ambitious venture.

And here is the actual talk..

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Olafur Eliasson: Space, Art and Little Sun

Posted in Art with tags , , , on July 13, 2012 by telescoper

I recently found a report about a new project by Olafur Eliasson at Tate Modern called Little Sun which seems very intriguing to me. Basically the Little Suns in question are solar-powered LED lamps, with a running time of about 5 hours. Similar, I suppose to the things some of us have in our gardens that charge up during the day and light up at night. Anyway,  the idea is that on Saturday evenings from 28 July to 23 September  the lights at Tate Modern will be switched off, and each visitor given a Little Sun so they can wander around and see the exhibits in the dark. I can imagine that this will a fascinating experience, changing as it will the usual relationship between the viewer and the viewed, and the space enclosing them both. During the day there will also be a gallery open on the building’s third floor, where visitors can learn about solar power, global energy problems, light and its importance to life, as well as create light graffiti, as demonstrated on the little video here:

I’m not sure I’ll the chance to see Little Sun but I hope this encourages at least a few of you to check it out.

I also found this talk by Olafur Eliasson at TEDX some time ago, called Playing with Space and Light. A while ago was invited one of the gatherings of artists and scientists he mentions at the beginning, and found it absolutely fascinating…

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