The President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, unveiled an IOP Blue Plaque commemorating Ernest Walton at the Physics Department, Trinity College Dublin on September 9. The plaque was sponsored by the IOP and unveiled in the presence of the Provost of Trinity, Tom Mitchell, Brian Manley, President of IOP, Alun Jones, Chief Executive and Bob McCullough, Chairman of the Irish Branch.
Ernest Walton was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1951, jointly with John Cockcroft, for their work in 1932 on splitting the atomic nucleus. The work at Rutherford's Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, constituted the first nuclear accelerator experiment, using protons accelerated to 700 KeV. Ernest Walton returned to work in the Physics Department in Trinity College in 1934, and was Erasmus Smith's professor from 1946 until his retirement in 1974.
President Robinson explained that she had first met Ernest Walton when she was a law student at Trinity, and that he was one of her sponsors when she stood for election to the Irish Senate. The President said she was particularly pleased to be able to meet Ernest Walton's four children, three of whom trained as physicists, at the unveiling ceremony.
President Robinson's term of office ended on September 12, and it is a mark of Ernest Walton's standing in Ireland that the President made time during her last few hectic days in office to perform the ceremony.
Finn MacLeod, a first year Theoretical Physics student at Trinity College, Dublin, has beaten other competitors from throughout Ireland and Britain to win the 1997 NEXUS undergraduate lecture competition. This was held on 26 March at the IOP Annual Congress in Leeds, England. His talk, 'Resonance of bubbles with simple harmonic motion', included a description of experiments he carried out while at school. Dr Sue Jackson, the IOP's student liaison officer, reported in Physics World that 'his enthusiastic and informal manner won the judges over from the start'.
Finn, who comes from the Orkney Islands in Scotland, was one of six undergraduates presenting 15 minute lectures on Physics topics of their choice. They had already been selected from entrants in Ireland and Britain through a series of regional rounds - in Finn's case, at the annual conference of the Irish Physics Students' Association, held at DCU last February.
One of the runners-up in the postgraduate competition at Leeds was Stefan Hutzler, a Physics research student also from Trinity College. At the annual congress dinner that evening he and Finn were presented with their certificates by the President of the IOP, Brian Manley. Subsequently Stefan and Finn went on to attend the conference for Nobel prize winners in Physics, which was held in Lindau, Germany, at the end of June.
Finn MacLeod went on to represent NEXUS at the International Conference of Physics Students, ICPS, last August in Vienna, Austria, where he repeated his lecture. The ICPS is run annually by IAPS, the International Association of Physics Students. Five other students from Trinity also went to ICPS: Colm Connaughton, Francis Daly, Brian Nisbet, Aylwyn Scally, and Lorna Sweetman. To any students reading this - the conference is well recommended.
Do the policeman and the bicycle exchange molecules? And where did Flann O'Brien find the inspiration for this novel notion? Science & culture and the Irish Writers Centre invite you to join them for a glass of wine and an exploration of the science in Flann O'Brien's writing. Dr Martin Croghan and Dr Dermot Diamond will present dramatised readings from O'Brien's Third Policeman with an illustrated interpretation of the physics and chemistry involved. Dr Michael Cronin will survey references to science in Irish writing since Swift, and there will be a discussion with invited guests. This event takes place during Science Week, 10-16 November 1997.
Thursday 13 November at 8pm
The Irish Writers Centre, 19 Parnell Sq, Dublin 1
Admission £3 (£2 concs)
Many of us in third level institutions have smiled wryly at the sight of the Irish and UK Governments going in opposite directions on the fees issue. The Irish Government abolished students fees recently, saying that fees prevented students from disadvantaged backgrounds continuing their education. Maintenance, however, is still only available to a tiny fraction of students and at an unrealistically low level. The UK Government argued that a loan system to cover both fees and maintenance is the only affordable way of funding third level. Society in a previous age decided that it was in its interest to fund primary and secondary education. In our own technological age, third level education is vital to the national interest, but governments appear reluctant to accept the consequences of this.
These changes may have an interesting effect. In the past, thousands of Irish students have attended UK institutions, at least partly because their fees were paid. This was a useful escape valve for an Irish system dealing with expanding numbers and a lack of resources. The trend may now reverse. More UK students on the Trinity campus, particularly from Northern Ireland, will be a welcome addition to the diversity of student life. However, the increased pressure on entrance qualifications may force the Irish Government to reassess its policy. We await developments with interest.
John McGilp
Medical Physics is primarily an applied branch of physics. It is concerned with the application of physical energy, concepts and methods to diagnosis and treatment of human disease. It is allied with medical electronics, bioengineering and health physics. A new course in Medical Physics was first presented in 1997 in the Dept of Experimental Physics in UCD and, due to the level of interest shown, will be presented again in Jan-April 1998. It is directed at final year physics students and interested postgraduate students. The course has several aims: to highlight this general area of physics and encourage physics students to consider medical physics as a career opportunity; to stimulate interest in graduate students to take up postgraduate research projects in the discipline.
The course begins with a review of the interactions of high energy (kV to 20MeV) photons and electrons in tissue media. This is followed by a description of the production of medical ionising radiation including x-ray tubes and linear accelerators. There is an introduction to the application of the high energy beams to the treatment of cancer and the data required to model the dose distributions in a human body. There is a section of the course on medical imaging (nuclear medicine, computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging) and the course ends with a review of radiation protection in a medical environment.
The course is taught by hospital physicists from St Luke's hospital (Brendan McClean and Pat McCavana) and St Vincent's Hospital (Michael Casey) in Dublin and is co-ordinated by Dr Peter Mitchell in UCD who also delivers the radiation protection component.
Brendan McClean
This year sees the first students enrolled for the new MSci degree in Physics enter their fourth and final year of study at Queen's University. The MSci course has been designed to give students the breadth of experience necessary to follow a career in Physics, with the degree being viewed as the necessary qualification for the professional physicist of the future. Enhancements over the traditional BSc degree include an increased emphasis on problem solving, a broad exposure to communication and transferable skills, and the requirement to undergo a mini research project in the final year.
All of this puts the Msci degree on a comparable level to the German Diploma or French Baccalaureate degrees, giving the Queen's Physics graduates the best possible opportunity to compete within the European jobs market.
Ian Williams
Recently there has been a large investment to create the Northern Ireland Centre for Advanced Materials (NICAM). This Centre was funded through European Commission and Northern Ireland Department of Economic Development through the IRTU in order to improve the infrastructure of research in advanced materials in the Province. The centre has facilities at Queen's University, Physics and Electrical Engineering and University of Ulster, Coleraine and Jordanstown.
The Condensed Matter Physics & Materials Science Research Division at Queen's is particularly active in thin films deposition and characterisation and the investment associated with NICAM has enabled the purchase of additional state of the art materials preparation and analysis facilities. The facilities that the Division include:
Magnetic Materials
The Division has been involved in magnetic materials research for many years, current activities include:
Magneto-optics. Experimental and theoretical work on materials to be used for optical data storage are under investigation. Materials of interest are multilayers of Pt/Co, Pd/Co and magnetic garnets. This work includes the in-situ monitoring of all magneto-optic and optical properties during the growth of the multilayers.
- Magneto-resistance. Multilayers such as Ni/Co and Co/Cu are being characterised to understand their fundamental properties and their potential as novel sensor systems.
- Soft alloys. Recent collaboration with Seagate Inc. has lead to a vigorous investigation of next generation materials for recording head pole-tip and shielding applications.
Ferroelectric Materials
The recent appointment of new academic staff interested in advanced ceramic materials technology has resulted in a major programme of research in ferroelectrics.
- Relaxors. Fundamental research aimed at understanding the causes of the dramatic dielectric properties in this class of ferroelectric are underway.
- Fabrication of thin film capacitors. Progress in electronic requires miniaturisation of all components. Currently the complex ferroelectric used in capacitors are prepared using thick film technology. Unfortunately, progression to thin film layers results in significant degradation of performance. Studies to understand the reasons for this degradation
- Mechanisms of dielectric loss. Ferrolectrics are of importance in many high frequency applications where loss is a major concern.
Complex Oxides
Research to utilise the recent advances and discoveries associated with complex multi-component oxide material systems is in its infancy. Many issues that can be taken for granted with established materials systems have to be learned anew.Epitaxy. The inability of for ceramics to undergo significant plastic deformation means that strain fields associated with semi-coherent /coherent growth cannot be dissipated easily.
Marty Gregg
Robert Bowman
Bob Pollard
EDUCATION SUBGROUP
Compiled by David ReaMembership of Sub Group for 1997-98
The members of the Sub-group for 1997-98 are:-
Colm O'Sullivan (Chairman)
Tom Loughnane (Secretary)
Eithne McCabe and David Rea.
It is planned to co-opt one further member who will be from Northern Ireland1998 Tyndall Lecturer
The 1998 Tyndall Lecturer will be Dr Paul Vlaandern of the University of Amsterdam. His lecture 'Provoking intuition - the unexpected in physics' will be given in Carlow RTC, QUB, UCC, UCG and RDS in early February.
IPSA 1998
IPSA 1998 will be hosted by the UCD student physics society. As usual, this important social and academic meeting of physics students will be supported by the Branch.
Annual Teachers of Physics Award
Once again the Sub-group seeks nominations for the annual Teachers of Physics Award. If any member is aware of a second level teacher who has an exceptional record in generating enthusiasm for physics among pupils or in helping them to enjoy the subject, please submit this information to any member of the Sub-group.
Video Library
Members are reminded that the Sub-group's Video Library, which operates from the UCG Physics Department, now comprises over 50 titles. Many of the video cassettes are suitable for supplementing undergraduate physics teaching as well as for school physics classes.
IOP Booklet
The current issue of the Institute of Physics 'Physics in Person' booklet has been expanded to include over one hundred lecture titles by lecturers in Ireland. This new version of the booklet should be of particular interest to Student Physics Societies as they plan their activities for the new academic year.
NEWSLETTER PUBLICATION
This newsletter is published twice yearly by the Irish Branch Committee of the Institute of Physics and distributed to all branch members and affiliated schools. We invite contributions from the membership, which may be submitted at any time, but should arrive by 1st January for the Spring issue and 1st August for the Autumn issue. Contributions should be sent to the editor, if possible by e-mail, or alternatively in hard copy to the following address.
Further information on the Irish Branch and its activities, including back numbers of this newsletter, are available on the web at: http://www.tcd.ie/IOP/
i.hughes@qub.ac.uk Address Dr I Hughes,
School of Maths and Physics,
Queen's University, Belfast
BT7 1NN
The main IOP website is at: http://www.iop.org/Message from the editor:
This Newsletter marks a change in editorship heralding a fresh approach. The introduction of the Forum section is designed to allow you to air your views on issues close to your heart. The Research Activities section has been redesigned to allow a group or individual to explain their research in more detail. Any possible bias towards the editor's own institution can only be rectified by a deluge of material from the wider readership.
Many thanks to Eamonn Cunningham for his stewardship of the newsletter over the past two years.
