The first two applications

I decided to start preparing for next years summer internship applications and found two that are already open! They are both really exciting but I'm dreading starting my covering letters... So I guess this post is an attempt to get started in a round about way and try and get some of my passion into my writing again. I mean I have written in the last 4 weeks but there is a slightly different tone when you're talking to clients about accounts... These opportunities for next year promise to be much more captivating!

The first is at IRENA which stands for International Renewable ENergy Agency. They cheated a bit with that N in there but it does sound better so I'll let them off! And I want them to like me so I definitely will! From what I've seen on their website they seem be to a type of council that works with different countries to encourage the use of renewable energy technologies more. To do this they research into new techniques, help set up systems and report on the usages in different countries. Like a network to share knowledge and resources more efficiently. So if you want to get into the renewable energy business, the centre of it all seems a pretty good place to be. There are opportunities in Abu Dahbi, United Arab Emirates and in Bonn, Germany. I would love the opportunity to go abroad and a summer is the perfect length for me. I have had such a great time on all my travels these last couple of years but the opportunity to live and work in a country would be a real chance to immerse myself in a culture. Even if I get homesick or things didn't go quite to plan, I don't think its something I could ever regret doing. I think I would prefer to be in Germany since its closer to home and therefore less scary but I can't afford to be fussy and to be honest maybe scarier is better. To further add to my excitement, they are currently relocating their head quarters to Masdar City and since discovering it in this post, I haven't forgotten my dream to visit it one day!

The second is at Sellafield which is a company that decommissions nuclear power stations. I applied last year and didn't get it but this year I am that bit older and am applying much earlier. I'm hoping that and a bit of luck will give me more of a chance to hopefully reach interview stage. The placement will either be in Manchester or West Cumbria and even though its not a new country it is still a brand new place which will hold its own surprises I'm sure. From looking at the website it seems a very structured placement and will surely lead to greater things. The Beacon Museum in Cumbria has a Sellafield  exhibition which sounds interesting! Oh and Brian Cox was at the opening ceremony... Not that I care... Just mentioning....

So... I guess I had better get started then... Wish me luck!

All I want for Christmas is you

So it is Christmas and Brian is everywhere again! I missed it but apparently he was on the One Show, I mean I don't watch that show because it is totally uncool... But it would have been cooler if Brian was on it!

Then I've fallen behind the Infinite Monkey Cage episodes. The most recent one is called, I'm a chemist get me out of here which isn't what I thought. I thought it would involve torturing chemists with van de graaff generators and quantum mechanics until they caved and said that physics was the best science. It was however a lot more informative and funny than that where they debated which was the best and why. To be honest it ended with a tie where the best point in favour of chemistry was that in chemistry you can't just pretend that a theory works by throwing the word dark in!

Then finally and most amazingly was Brian's 'a night with the stars'. They had a celebrity audience in a really beautiful room at the royal institute. It was all about quantum theory and I think they touched upon entanglement but I still found it slightly confusing. It was a nice introduction I suppose but I needed to know a bit more because I'm finding the whole thing a bit frustrating now! I'm back to hating wave particle duality again... Saying that however it made a wonderful show! The demonstrations were really good and I felt thoroughly entertained afterwards

Secret Santa!!

Secret Santa this year was the best!

I have to admit that when giving my physics present I experienced a microsecond of reluctance to give the Brian mask away. However within one second of her opening the present I totally knew it was a brilliant idea! Thankfully everybody found it very funny and the mask was then worn almost all day! I honestly never stopped seeing Brian around the place!

It turned out that my teacher was my Secret Santa! She bought me this really cool steady hand game where you can change the shape of the wire. I'm shockingly bad at this but I am getting better! Clearly in this case the wire has been bent to look like a Christmas tree, clearly...

And then in a non related physics Secret Santa my friend bought me this t-shirt! She's pretty amazing right?? I know its rude but its too funny not to wear, I even wore it to my grandmas house! Its true, even if I didn't take off my jumper at all...

This would have been a picture of Brian wearing the t-shirt except I gave the mask away... Never mind, Finn is always a pretty model!

Embarrasment

Its officially time to stop fighting against biology and just embrace it! I found this website and feel it would no longer be fair for me to continually resist biology and laugh at my friends who like it after reading this website, from the Institute of Physics - we can live in harmony guys!

In other less optimistic news I still haven't gotten over the embarrassment of getting a certificate in assembly for getting a merit in the Olympiad... Our teacher said it was for the greater good so as to promote physics within the school but it isn't fair - Brian Cox gets to go on all the best TV programmes (including would I lie to you) and travel the world to promote physics. All I get is a situation that in fairness would only be moderately embarrassing if it weren't for the fact that I am far to old to receive a certificate in front of the whole school. In addition to that there was an excessive quantity of certificates (2 certificates for one competition) and the prolonging of the experience by having to explain the Olympiad to various people... Then my Chemistry teacher had the WONDERFUL idea that we should do the Chemistry one in February....

And now theres a picture of me from the school trip on the school website.... Brilliant...

How to use a Brian Cox Mask

I've be seriously reconsidering giving this Brian mask as part of a Christmas present. And no, that's not just because I want to keep it myself!! Its just that its a little bit weird... And I wonder if it will really have any use? So I've made a list of what you can do with the mask:

1. Put it on the Christmas Tree
2. Jump out at people whilst wearing it (ignore the fact that jumping out on people is always hilarious even without the mask...)
3. 'Dream of being a particle physicist' - haha, the credit for this one has to go to these guys!
4. Join Professor Brian Cox Appreciation Society like this one
5. Wear it to get backstage to see Simon Singh (giving it to her for Christmas may be a little too late...)
6. Wear it on the back of your head, drink unicorn blood and hunt down the philosophers stone to find Brian a new body
7. Make someone else wear it and rehearse what you would say to Brian if you met him for real - honestly its better to be over prepared for these things, you don't want to totally freeze...
8. Hang it up in your room so people thing your obsessed with Brian cox so as to hide your real obsession of Nikola Tesla (maybe that one is too specific...)
9. Use it as a catapult
10. Play with it for up to 5 minuets after you open it then just put it in a drawer somewhere and forget about it....

Brian Brian Brian Brian Brian

Brian keeps popping up all over the place today. I got home from my driving lesson and was surprised to find him on the top of our christmas tree, fighting the angel for the best place.

And then I was busy making snow when my Dad found Brian on TV! Well thats sort of what happened... Heres the video... 

Maybe you won't find this vdieo as funny as I have watching it back but I find it hilarious how many emotions I can experience within 1 minute!! Surprise, anticipation, excitement, doubt, frustration and crushing dissapiontment! But seriously, I don't even like Brian that much...

Brian Adventures

Ohmygoodness Ohmygoodness! You are never going to believe what happened to me today!! I got an email from the actual Brian Cox!! It turns out he has been reading my blog for a while! Some of those page views must haev been his... I think he found it while googling his own name but who seriously doesn't do that? So he says that he was reading my blog and this particular post caught his eye. It just so happens that for the new series of Wonders of the Solar System they were planning a trip to Jupiter and they had room for an extra person on the flight!!  So Brian and I went to actual Jupiter! I packed lots of warm clothes because I learnt about how cold it is in space from that Satellite programme but obviously Brian didn't watch that show because he had to borrow my new leavers hoodie when we got there. Obviously I wasn't allowed to do the important button pressing and stuff so I just made Brian cups of tea. I knew you might not believe me so I took a picture as proof! please don't make fun of Brian's tan, space travel can do that to a persons complexion...

Ps. you can't blame me, I would have been a fool not to have a play with the mask before I gave it away, a fool!!

Brian and a crazy biologist and a really good impressionist!

My teacher sent me this link today and its pretty good actually! Its got Professor Brian Cox in it so of course I'm going to like it anyway but even without that I'd like it! Its funny too! Except for a really dodgy joke about Pi and gravytea... And it talks all about the wonderful discovery's made in Manchester which have made me wish that I applied to Manchester now... Its not all about physics either, there was even this crazy biologist who said that 'Biology is harder than Physics, we have equations but there are lots of exceptions which make it more fun'... Crazy guy, equations have to work, I like them to work! Otherwise it's just frustrating!!!

Secret Brian Santa

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah! Just found this, its the perfect Christmas gift for the physics secret Santa!

Woa, two Brian posts in a row, totally not obsessed...

I can draw!!

In class recently we've been drawing quite a few diagrams and I've been getting a lot of stick about my drawing abilities... Its continues outside of lesson time too when in an attempt to draw Charlie Mc Donnell (top left) became more like a picture of Professor Brian Cox (bottom left)... I have no idea how this happened! I'm definitely not obsessed with him... You can see the similarities though right??!

Anyway, so to prove that I can draw this is a diagram that we made to help understand how metal detectors work and I think its pretty good!! I used my erasable pens :)

I love physics!

So I can't tell if I'm stuck in 'crazy I love physics' mode or if today really was brilliant?! I had three physics lessons and I had so much fun!

So my friends have pretty much decided to buy tickets for the uncaged monkeys, we'll just find someone else to take my ticket if I can't at least maybe I make it! this way it seems like the interview/no interview is a win win situation!

Then I had a physics lesson in which we were talking about simple harmonic motion. I asked if humans have a natural frequency and then we took an interesting turn off topic in which we dicussed stomachs exploding at discos... Basicly when a certain frequency of sound is applied a certain object will vibrate in a way called resonance. A different object will have a different frequency so our bodies will have a frequency at which they will vibrate.

Then with my other teacher we have been doing magnetic fields and today started talking about transformers. This uses AC currents it is incredibly clever so I thought that Nikola Tesla had probably invented it. I checked, he did! It's a bit complicated so I'm not sure I can explain it but it uses the laws of induction. Now I understand how the tesla coil works (basically a transforming to very high voltages) and it is brilliant! This is a video clips from a film using the tesla coils, please excuse the cheesy romance plot line!!

The Uncaged Monkeys!

Brian has another run of physics gigs! The Uncaged Mokeys (Professor Brian Cox, Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh and Robert Ince) had a few shows in the summer too but it was during the exam period so there was no way I could go so today when my Dad told me that there were some new dates available this December I got a little excited! It's called a night of 200 Billion Stars and the website says 'prepare to be amazed'! It's going to be great!!

At least it would be if the only dates weren't the 13th and 14th of December... I can't make it... Thats the only two dates of Physics interveiws for Oxford! I don't even know if I will be called to interview but I have to keep the date free even though it seems more likely that I will be free those night! It's so sad... I'm sure this cannot be an accident, really what are the chances?!

Guess who is GQ's TV personality of the Year!?

ATTENTION! Breaking Brian News! He was voted the GQ's TV Personality of The Year! I found his acceptance speech here but I haven't listened to it yet because the sound doesn't seem to be working on my laptop!! I'm sure its brilliant though! Matt Smith was voted, Tanqueray Most Stylish Man which might sound cooler (what on earth is tanqueray?!) but I won't let him take Brians limelight!

By the way, this isn't me choosing Brian over Tesla, they are two very different physicist... I'm well rounded now, I dont have to have favourites... Anyway, thanks to my friend for bringing this news to my attention!

Yay, a New Series to Watch

My friend recommended that I watch James May's Things You Need to Know on The BBC and I am so glad she did! It explains an awful lot of my AS level course in half an hour in a really clear way and I would definitely recommend it to non-physicists. Even though Physics is obviously cool, this programme shows it in a way that its coolness is obvious and unquestionable! I might even go so far as to say that it is better that Brian's series... And not just because I replaced Brian with Nikola I genuinely believe that this explains it clearer, it is easier to concentrate for half an hour and it doesn't have all the unnecessary travel aspect that Brians show had. I would definitely suggest new year 12 Physics students watch this too!!

Hey, look at that - even without an Ipod I manage to find ways for Physics related procrastination!

Practise makes Perfect...

Today I did a practise paper at home under test conditions and it wasn't totally awful! Which was a pleasant, welcome surprise!

Maybe we took the test conditions a little far: hiding notes, turning off electronic communication devices, using a pen, clean copy of data sheets, my Brian book on the desk for good luck etc. I even considered the offer of my father as an invigilator but realised that might be a little too extreme! But I wanted to do it right..

It's clear that there are still several areas for improvement but so far as 'first mock papers ever' go, it was okay! When we mark it I'll probably get a D now... I hope not! I wonder if Brian hated revision?


Oh no, I didn't remove my calculator lid :0

Happy Easter!

Today is Easter Sunday! And since Chocolate has a lot to do with Easter, you should watch this video!

The pressure of air outside a vacuum chamber pushes down on the 'goo' (insides of a creme egg) and keeps it inside the chocolate. Without this pressure inside the vacuum the goo expands and bursts out of the chocolate shell!

There really is only one way to eat a creme egg from now on! I really feel like I need a vacuum pump!

For Easter my Mum and Dad bought me Brians Book for the second series!! Yay :)

Speed of Butter Melting in a Microwave....

Okay so this morning really failed on the experiment front... I was actually trying to find the speed of light but all I really found was the time it took to melt butter...

This was going to be really exciting as it is the name sake of this blog, it involved a bit of maths and we already had all the things I would need in the house! Well, kind of...

The experiment could be done with marshmallows or buttered bread (I figured marshmallows would be too messy and as it's still lent I still couldn't eat them after..). You cook them in the microwave (after disabling the rotory plate) for a few seconds and some sections should melt before others. Since the speed of light = the frequency x the wavelength, you measure the distance between the patches, half it to get the wavelength and multiply it by the frequency (should be given in a microwave manual or be on the side) and you get the speed of light! Except our microwave is a fancy modern one which doesn't rotate but manages to heat (I'm not entirely sure how...) food from the centre so I tried it anyway and ended up with a centralised soggy sandwich...

I forgot how disappointing a failed experiment is! Especially as I had to convince my parents that this wasn't a waste of bread - I'm sure Brians parents sacrificed their bread more willingly in the name of Science! I might try this again after Easter in my Grandparents microwave, with marshmallows!

X-ray machine in my wardrobe

Physics revision somehow wound up with me on the 'bang goes the theory' website on the BBC.. It's kind of on topic so it doesn't totally count as procrastination right?
Anyway I found this: http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/science-maths-technology/science/biology/order-your-free-set-genome-fridge-magnets which is super cool - I can't wait for mine to arrive!

So then I started looking for free physics stuff and I ended up on an article describing how sellotape can cause x- rays! If you slowly undo sellotape in the dark you see a fluorescent blue glow! So guess who ended up inside a wardrobe because she couldn't wait for night? Yea, that might've been me.. but guess who ended up slightly entangled and bitterly disappointed, three times? Also me... I might've been doing it wrong but I'm pretty sure there aren't many ways of peeling off sellotape... I had to give up after three times because I was getting tired of rewinding sellotape! I had never mind, I'll try again with another roll - I'm used to Physics experiments not working!

Anyway this is what is actually happening when you unroll sellotape (in a wardrobe or out of a wardrobe...). The adhesive becomes positively charged and the rest of the rolll is negatively charged. You transfer energy to the charge when you pull it away. The negative charge will be attracted to the positively charged adhesive and will move through the air towards it. It transfers the energy to the air and the air molecules glow! An American researcher, Carlos Camara, did this experiment in a vacuum (I'm pretty sure I must have one of those somewhere in my wardrobe..) and produced x-rays powerful enough to take an x-ray image of a hand!! I watched a youtube video of this and it literally was just a normal roll of sellotape!

Needless to say - I have a new favourite website! I want to say I'll try a new experiment everyday but I'm not sure i can cope with daily disappointments!! I'll try everyday till one works?!

Ps. it wasn't the wardrobe with Brian in ;)

Is it too soon for another Brian post?

I never watch Tracy Beaker but I flicked onto it for a few seconds and BAM! There was Brian!! He is everywhere!! In my cupboard, on my TV, on my computer and in my school (well in the corridors... Well on the walls...) but hey, I'm not complaining ;)

Wall of Cool

So, I have started a physics wall! Well, its currently a Physics door because then I can close it away when people come over if I need to.. But I'm hoping to stick at it long enough to expand onto a wall!

And no - before anyone starts trying to be funny - no, it isn't just an excuse to have a poster of Brian!