Sometimes ideas for research projects can come from unusual places. For me, this project started when I signed up to the ACT Science Mentors program to mentor a high school student through a research project. The student I was partnered with was very interested in quantum mechanics, and had already measured the Boltzmann constant in … Continue reading Twisting light: creating an optical vortex
Optical phased arrays are a way to construct a really powerful laser beam, and steer it precisely without mirrors or lenses. Making an optical phased array that can steer millions of times per second would be a huge boon to systems like LIDAR for autonomous cars. But to make something move that fast, you need … Continue reading Fast steering optical phased array: how to trick a control system
So after months of lab work, late nights, and statistics you’ve got some data and have p-hacked your way to a statistically significant correlation. Now you just have to write up your findings and force the manuscript through a peer review system based more in tradition than sanity in order to publish before you perish. … Continue reading How to publish a turd
Papers are the currency of the academic world. All academics know that they must “publish or perish” in an environment where resources are slim and competition is fierce. But that doesn’t stop us from having some fun with our papers. Entertaining titles, jokes, hidden surprises, and even the occasional hoax can be found in just … Continue reading Hoaxes, humour, and haggis – the weird world of publish or perish
With thousands of radio dishes spread over thousands of kilometres, the Square Kilometre Array will be the largest and most powerful radio telescope in the world and able to explore the deepest regions of the cosmos. But only if these thousands of radio dishes, some hundreds of kilometres apart, can be synchronized to within a … Continue reading Getting in Sync with the SKA
Quantum mechanics is weird. To be a physicist you have to accept that the microscopic, underlying reality of nature looks and behaves very differently to the laws of physics we are used to in our every day lives. Many physicists struggle to accept this, including Einstein. Einstein disliked the fact that quantum mechanics, a theory … Continue reading Spooky Action at a Distance
Every so often I see a certain fun fact or news item about chocolates or soft drink do the rounds of the internet. The most recent example I saw said that when a KitKat fails quality control, it doesn’t get thrown out, instead it gets mashed up into the chocolate paste that fills the KitKat … Continue reading The Maths of Recycled KitKats
We used a telescope and a high-precision laser system to beam an atomic clock signal through thin air. While we only sent the signal between buildings, this is the first step in developing a system able to beam these signals to satellites in orbit, with the ultimate aim of pushing our theories of the universe … Continue reading Between a clock and outer space
One of the paybacks of being a scientist is that if you create some new thing or discover a new phenomenon, you get to name it. Biologists can name a new species after friends or family, experimenters enjoy finding clever acronyms to call their equipment, and astronomers have the opportunity to etch their choices into … Continue reading What’s in a name?
There is an old adage in the performing arts that you should never work with animals or children, though as a rule of thumb it seems to apply equally well to just about any profession. As an experimental physicist, I thought I had managed to steer clear of the troubles that working with animals and … Continue reading Natural anomalies: when animals get in the way of science
