The London and South East branch operates several centres:
London
Hertfordshire
Kent
Milton Keynes
Retired Members' Section
Video recordings of previous lectures

LONDON CENTRE

The IoP, 76 Portland Place, London W1B 1NT MAP

                              Our lectures are FREE to attend, are open to non-members and take place on Wednesday evenings starting at 1830.
                              Tea and coffee available from 1800. Please register beforehand by emailing londonsoutheast@physics.org

27 Jan 2010

Man-made Materials: blessing or curse?
Dr Barbara Gabrys, University of Oxford

Are ‘plastics’ nasty or fantastic? What makes polymers stand out? Are they making our life more comfortable or more miserable? Can fundamental research contribute to improvement of the properties of man-made materials so they continue to replace scarce natural resources but will ‘die’ at the end of their useful life? Since 10,000 BC man used naturally occurring materials for warmth, safety and comfort. The relative importance that the four classes of materials: metals, polymers, composites and ceramics played in mechanical and civil engineering was changing with time. The discovery of synthetic polymers (plastics) in the 1850’s and their subsequent industrial production starting from 1900 or thereabouts, had dramatic influence on economy worldwide. It contributed to the – unprecedented in history – wealth creation and increase of prosperity, especially in the Western world. But this success story has a sinister side to it as well: we are drowning in seemingly indestructible materials, and places available for landfill are running out.

10 Feb 2010

From Lodestone to Spintronics and Magnonics
Professor PAJ deGroot, University of Southampton

Magnetic materials have fascinated humankind for many years. From descriptions by the ancient Greeks and the invention of the compass, probably in China, magnetism has become one of the corner stones of modern science and is central to many technologies. The aim of this lecture is to describe how magnetic materials have helped to shape our world, in data-storage, magneto-optical devices, high-power electromotors, etc, and also in our understanding of many-body systems. Recent advances, closely related to research at the University of Southampton, will be highlighted such as materials patterned on nanometer length scales: nano-magnets, superior magnetic (magnonic) metamaterials and spintronics – using the spin of conduction electrons to carry quantum or classical information. These developments promise a bright future for magnetism.

24 Feb 2010

Title: TBC
Professor John Beddington, Chief Scientific Advisor to HM Government

10 Mar 2010

Scale Invariance in Complex Systems
Professor G Rogers, Brunel university

This talk will provide an overview of scale invariance in complex systems, suitable for the non-specialist. The concept of scale invariance will be introduced by considering critical phenomena in condensed matter physics. Then empirical and theoretical examples of scale invariance, drawn from growing social and technological networks, self-organising granular media and financial systems will be discussed. An attempt will be made to draw some general conclusions about the necessary and sufficient conditions required for a system to display scale invariance.

24 Mar 2010

Materials issues for nuclear energy generation
Professor Chris Grovenor, University of Oxford

Over the past two years there has been a welcome renaissance in interest in the nuclear option for electricity generation in the UK, and so understanding how to learn from materials problems in the existing fleet has become of increasing interest as well as how to design new materials for operation at higher temperatures. There is also a growing consensus that if fusion has any potential in the longer term to meet our energy needs then new materials will have to be found to operate in uniquely harsh conditions of high temperatures and severe radiation damage. This talk will describe some of the work in Oxford on how we are using the latest generation of analytical techniques to study key degradation mechanisms in a number of different classes of nuclear materials with the aim of designing more robust materials for the next generation of reactors.

14 Apr 2010

Starbursts - the juicy sweets of the universe
Dr Mark Westmoquette, UCL

Modern astronomy is concerned with understanding the evolution of the Universe. Stars are one of the primary drivers of this change, and one of the most dramatic ways of creating new stars is through a starburst. I will discuss how starbursts are defined, where they are found, what they are made of, and what consequences they have for their host galaxies and the Universe as a whole. I will end by describing some of the work I have been doing in this field.

28 Apr 2010

Expanding the Frontiers of Neutron Science
Dr Andrew Taylor, Director ISIS pulsed neutron and muon source
Rutherford and Appleton Laboratory

Accelerator Driven Sources have delivered a paradigm shift in our ability to produce neutron beams for condensed matter research. The ISIS Facility at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory has for twenty years been the world’s leading pulsed neutron source delivering beams of neutrons to probe the microscopic structure and dynamics of condensed matter. Applications range from archaeology and engineering science to the understanding of superconductivity and quantum complexity. The newly commissioned Second Target Station at ISIS is further expanding the frontiers of research in soft matter and advanced materials.

12 May 2010

How to keep a good woman down
Professor Averill Macdonald, Reading University

Ask anyone to name a female scientist and there's a good chance it will be Marie Curie. However there were many, many more successful women scientists whose names should also be remembered but who have been overlooked, or even erased from history. Was this a conspiracy to keep good women down? This talk will explore the lengths that the science community has gone to in the past to keep good women scientists out of the limelight. Was this a deliberate attempt to perpetuate the myth that only men can do science? Have we moved on or are there practices in place to ensure that good women are still kept down? And why is it that successful scientists never wash their own socks?

26 May 2010

Cosmic Rays and Climate - and other matters
Professor Sir Arnold Wolfendale, Durham University
Joint meeting with Environmental Physics Group

Cosmic rays provide one of the main sources of ionization in the atmosphere and might,thus,have an effect on cloud formation and,thereby, atmospheric temperature. Furthermore,they may have relevance to the well-known problem with the initiation of lightning, by way of the arrival of dense extensive air shower cores. The study includes an examination of the 11-year cycle of cloud cover, radon, nuclear bombs and the Chernobyl disaster. Forbush decreases in the cosmic ray flux are also studied,as well a the possibility of seeing 'cigar-shaped-clouds' coming from air showers. A brief mention will be made of the role of past very high fluxes of high energy cosmic rays, a billion years ago, and consequent lightning, in the formation of life! Finally, the basic physics behind 'Climate Change' is discussed.

09 Jun 2010

Title: TBC
This lecture will be on medical physics

HERTFORDSHIRE CENTRE

Meetings are usually held in the Lindop Building, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield. Special lectures are held in the Weston Auditorium on the de Havilland Campus. Further information can be obtained from Dr Diane Crann, School of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield AL10 9AB (tel 07770 444 614, e-mail d.crann@herts. ac.uk), who will add members’ e-mail addresses, if provided, to her reminder list.

27 Jan 2010

Robot Companions
Professor Kerstin Dautenhahn, Adaptive Systems Research Group, School of Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire.

Robots in the role of assistants and companions are becoming increasingly popular. Such robots can be beneficial in a variety of areas where they may provide physical or cognitive assistance, or serve as therapeutic or educational “toys”. The talk will provide two examples of robot companions, namely in the fields of robot assisted play for children with autism and home assistance for elderly and other users. Examples will include research as part of the European project LIREC where UH develops robot companions for the UH “Robot House”. Research challenges as well as ethical issues involved in this research will be discussed.

24 Feb 2010

Nanometrology: traceable measurement of tiny dimensions
Professor Richard Leach, Principal Research Scientist, National Physical Laboratory

It is now fully appreciated that metrology will play an integral role in the successful development and commercialisation of micro- and nanotechnology. This talk will briefly describe the background of the research into engineering nanometrology at NPL, concentrating on the technical details of the projects. Projects include the development of traceable instrumentation to measure areal surface topography, very low forces and micro-scale geometry.

24 March 2010

The Geoengineering Option: How to think about technologies for cooling the planet
Oliver Morton is the new Energy and Environment Editor at The Economist.

Reducing carbon-dioxide emissions is vital to avoiding catastrophic climate change, but it is also remarkably challenging. Are there other ways of cooling the planet that might make up for what is so hard to do through emissions control and thus buy some time? A variety of possibilities will be discussed in this talk.

KENT CENTRE

Meetings will be held on Tuesday evenings at 7.30 p.m. in Rutherford College Lecture Theatre 1, University of Kent. Further information can be obtained from Dr C Isenberg (tel 01227 823 768, e-mail c.isenberg@kent.ac.uk).

09 Feb 2010

End in Fire
Dr Robert Smith, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sussex

In the distant future, the Sun will run out of nuclear fuel and expand to become a red giant star. This will have dramatic consequences (some 7.6 billion years hence) for the Earth. The talk will give an overview of what will happen as the Sun expands, and will also discuss whether life can survive on the Earth on a much smaller timescales.

02 March 2010

Chaos in Action
Professor Mohammed Sohby, School of Engineering and Digital Arts, University of Kent

Chaos is a branch of mathematics that deals with systems that seem to exhibit chaotic or hard-to-predict behaviour. The weather is a famous example of a natural chaotic system and its study led to the first mathematical understanding of chaos. This is a demonstration lecture.

23 March 2010

Paul Dirac and the Religion of Beauty
Dr Graham Farmelo, Senior Research Fellow, The Science Museum, London

Paul Dirac was the greatest English theoretical physicist since Newton. He is famous for co-discovering quantum mechanics, for his beautiful equation for the behaviour of the electron and for brilliantly predicting the existence of antimatter. Although sceptical of philosophy and religion, in later life Dirac became an apostle for the great importance of mathematical beauty in fundamental physics. It was ‘almost a religion’ for him. In this talk the speaker will examine the basis and efficacy of this belief and also look at the remarkable character of this great theoretician, once dubbed ‘ the Mozart of Science’.

MILTON KEYNES CENTRE

Lectures held at 7.30pm on the following Tuesdays, in the Berrill Lecture Theatre, Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AB. All are welcome to attend free of charge. For further information contact: Prof. Ray Mackintosh, email: r.mackintosh@open.ac.uk or Tracy Bartlett; 01908 655253; email: t.a.bartlett@open.ac.uk.

RETIRED MEMBERS' SECTION

We provide a series of events and visits for retired branch members. Each quarter, those on the mailing list are sent descriptions of forthcoming events and an application form. We have more than 200 members, so some events get over-booked. Where there is sufficient demand, they may be repeated. The next mailing will go out at the end of February. To be put on the mailing list and to offer suggestions for future REMS visits, contact Reinalt Vaughan-Williams, REMS visit secretary (tel 0208 946 3399, mobile 0775 808 5741, e-mail reinalt@physics.org). The programme and detailed descriptions of each of the events can be found on the branch website (london.iop. org) by clicking on the “Retired Members” link or by going to reinalt.co.uk/rems.aspx.

Video recordings of previous lectures

The following lectures are available for members to view online by going to