Prof Meghan Gray
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What can I do with my physics degree? Reflections on our first Careers Week
December 18, 2017
As we’ve reached the end of a very busy Autumn term, we reflect back on some of the changes we’ve made this term. One new development was the introduction of a Physics Final Year Careers Week in November — a week of career-focused activities to help Physics students learn more about their career opportunities, increase …
100th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion
December 4, 2017
In my latest Sixty Symbols video with Brady Haran, I discuss a big bang. Despite the fact I’m an astronomer, I’m not talking about THE Big Bang, but rather the largest explosion made by human beings before the development of the atomic bomb. It was an accident, it happened 100 years ago this week, and …
A summer Down Under chasing gravitational waves
November 1, 2017
Guest post from former Nottingham undergraduate (MSci Physics 2017) and now first-year PhD student Lizzie Elmer, who went to Australia for a summer research experience and ended up playing an important role in one of the most exciting recent discoveries in physics! Finding an internship At the beginning of 2016, I was trying to decide …
Nottingham physics YouTube videos: October 2017
October 30, 2017
Nottingham physicists have been busy in October! Here are some of the Youtube videos we’ve appeared in, in collaboration with filmmaker Brady Haran and his YouTube channels Sixty Symbols, Numberphile, and Deep Sky Videos. Sixty Symbols Dr. Becky Smethurst discusses quantum entanglement and the Upside Down: Prof Philip Moriarty measures the speed of light …
Celebrating Ada Lovelace Day 2017
October 6, 2017
We’re pleased to be hosting two events in honour of Ada Lovelace Day: an annual international event celebrating achievements of women in science, technology, engineering, and math. (We’ve spoken previously about Nottingham native Ada Lovelace and her contributions to computer science here). Admission free, all are welcome! Where can a physics degree take you? In …
Levitation in the lab
September 27, 2017
A guest post by Senior Research Fellow Dr. Richard Hill, whose research recently graced the cover of the September 15 volume of the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters. I have two superconducting magnets in my lab generating strong magnetic fields that can levitate water, wax, alcoholic drinks, flies, supercarrots, you know, that kind of thing… …
PhysSoc welcomes a new crop of students
September 21, 2017
We’re gearing up to welcome our new crop of first-year students next week, and a host of student mentors from the student-run physics society will be on hand to help make sure everyone feels at home. In the guest post below, PhysSoc president Jake Lester explains what the society does and why it’s a good …
Summer Research: Systems Engineer at BAE Systems
August 31, 2017
An interview with undergraduate Jake Lester, who has been working on a summer internship at BAE Systems. Jake will be shortly returning to Nottingham for his fourth and final year of the MSci programme and will also serve as president of PhysSoc. This is the second post in a continuing series focusing on how our students are …
2017 National Student Survey (NSS) results
August 9, 2017
Guest post by Prof Michael Merrifield, Head of School The results of the National Student Survey (NSS) were published today. This survey is conducted among all graduating students every year, in which they answer a whole series of questions about their experience at university, ranging from how good the staff were at explaining things to …
Biggest infra-red image of sky ever taken released by Nottingham astronomers
August 3, 2017
On the 1st August 2017, Nottingham’s astronomy group released the largest ever infra-red image of the sky. The image has 1.5 million megapixels and gives the most detailed view ever of the northern hemisphere from the ecliptic plane right up to 60 degrees north of the ecliptic. In this guest post, Dr. Simon Dye …