Check out our summer 2012 work experience and internship guide for physicists and get that head start your career deserves.

Time to see the universe with Brian Cox and Dara Ó Briain – it’s Stargazing LIVE!

Posted on January 12, 2012 by physcarl

The unlikeliest duo to teach you all about the universe and how to view it are back on our television screens this January. The second series of Stargazing LIVE is due to begin this coming Monday the 16th January 2012 on BBC 2 and will air over three consecutive nights.

The talented and enthusiastic Dr Brian Cox and Dara Ó Briain will grace our screens again next week. Like last year, they will bring the breathtaking sights from our own night sky into our living rooms. In this series, this odd couple intend to address questions such as  why the moon causes tides, how we know black holes exist when we can’t actually see them and what we would actually say if we were contacted by an alien race. Interesting food for thought.

Over the next month, there are several stargazing parties and opportunities to look through a telescope yourself around the United Kingdom. You can search for an event near you on the BBC website.

Stargazing LIVE airs on BBC 2 at 8:30pm on 16 January 2012  and at 8pm on 17 and 18 January 2012.

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Curiosity Hasn’t Killed The Rover; Curse of the Red Planet and the Latest Mars Mission

Posted on January 9, 2012 by physcarl

Carl discusses the latest mission to Mars, the Mars Science Laboratory, and the historically unlucky journey to the red planet most recently highlighted by the failure of the Russian Phobos-Grunt Mars probe…

On Saturday the 26th November 2011, an amazing machine was launched atop an Atlas rocket and fired on a path towards the Red Planet. Approximately the same size as a Mini Cooper, this extraordinary machine is a mobile science laboratory and over fives times as massive as anything we have ever sent to roam the surface of Mars.

In just seven months the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) will attempt the first precision Mars landing using an entirely new and unproven method, safely delivering arguably the most advanced scientific package ever sent to another world – a rover called Curiosity. It’s scientific mission? To determine if Mars is, or ever has been, able to support life.

The spacecraft is about to undergo an important manoeuvre which will involve a choreographed sequence of firings of eight thrusters over a period of around 3 hours. It will redirect the spacecraft more precisely toward Mars to land at Gale Crater. This operation is scheduled for January 11, 2012. Continue reading →

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Happy Birthday To Us! Carl Talks Physics is 1; Competition Time!

Posted on December 25, 2011 by physcarl

On this very day exactly one year ago Carl Talks Physics burst into existence, much like our universe nearly 13.7 billion years ago. Unlike our universe though, the path that we have taken could not have been predicted by elegant laws crafted by mathematicians.  We would like to thank every single one of you that has dropped by to read an article or to catch up on the latest news and developments within the field. Our hope is that every single one of you has left the site knowing more than when you first visited.

Our most popular item over the past year has been our guide to work experience placements and internships during summer 2012. Don’t forget to keep checking back to see when schemes and placements have opened up for applications so you can get a head start in your career, whatever you want to do after studying physics. We hope this has been a valuable tool – we will endeavour to update it as often as possible! Good luck with those applications.

During the past year, we have published twenty four original articles, filling your minds with knowledge on topics ranging from particle physics to how we describe the physics of our chaotic atmosphere. From small white dwarfs to the evolution of the entire universe. Some of the most popular reads have been those about our own backyard and the planet we were born on and will grow old on; Earth. The images within them are some we will keep with us forever and hope you will too.

Your first birthday is always a special event, so it feels right that we are making a bit of a fuss about ours. Instead of that tired old tradition where you would buy us a present, we are going to give you a present. Well, actually, we’re going to give you guys the chance to win a special physics related prize.

Competition

We are giving you the chance to win Professor Brian Cox’s Wonders Collection. This DVD boxset consists of ‘Wonders of the Solar System’ and ‘Wonders of the Universe’ on 4 discs and is probably the most fantastic example of science outreach within the past few years.

To get your hands on this fantastic prize, all you have to do is leave a comment below with a short description of the area of physics you’re most interested in and why. Don’t forget to leave a valid e-mail address which we can contact you through should you win! The competition closes on 31 January 2012 – good luck!

Competition rules:

  1. Entry is restricted to one entry per household.
  2. Automated, bulk, multiple and third-party entries will be disqualified.
  3. Late, incomplete or invalid entries will be disqualified.
  4. Open to residents of the mainland United Kingdom (UK) only.
  5. Prizes can only be sent to a valid UK address.
  6. Winners will be chosen at random from all valid entries.
  7. Winners will be contacted via email address.
  8. The Judges decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
  9. Carl Talks Physics is compliant with the data protection act. Our policy is such that we will not pass on your details to any third party without your prior consent.
  10. The competition will run from 25 December 2011 00:01 GMT until 31 January 2012 23:59 GMT.
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The 11 Days of Physics and The Gift of Knowledge

Posted on December 15, 2011 by physcarl

Are you excited yet? It’s just over a week until Christmas day and that time where you didn’t realise you had a need for a crystal growing kit, or those festive socks that you can’t wear for at least another 11 months. Knowing our luck, the Sun will be shining down with snow nowhere to be found!

Have you checked out our top gifts for physicists? If you’re a good friend, or just strapped for cash this Christmas, we have the perfect gift that you can share and enjoy: the gift of knowledge. Give this most precious of presents this festive season and enjoy physics at the same time! Continue reading →

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News: Earth’s bigger and more mysterious brother Kepler 22b

Posted on December 7, 2011 by physcarl

On Monday, NASA announced confirmation of a planet orbiting a star over 180 parsecs from Earth – that’s 3,000 trillion miles away! Kepler 22b is the first planet that orbits its star comfortably within the habitable zone. This is the region around the star where liquid water would be able to exist on a planet’s surface. It was discovered using the Kepler telescope which is constantly monitoring over 140,000 stars in the night sky.

Most news outlets ran stories that made you feel it was time to pack your suitcase and hitch a ride on a shuttle to a shiny new home. But what most fail to point out is that we still don’t know an awful lot about Kepler 22b. What we do know is that it’s just over twice the size of the Earth, a year on this strange would would be 290 Earth days and that if it has a similar atmosphere to Earth (that’s a big if!) then the temperature on the surface would be a pleasantly sweaty 22 degrees Celsius.

These are big ifs! We can’t conclusively tell if this planet is even rocky, it may turn out to be more like Uranus. The planet is also too far away to have a closer look at its atmosphere and see if it is not unlike our own. It may turn out to be a completely uninhabitable planet.

But then again, it may just turn out to be Earth’s bigger brother. Maybe pack a suitcase ready just in case…

Read More: Telegraph, Independent, NASA

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Physicists Celebrate Christmas Too! Top 5 Xmas Gifts to Give a Physicist

Posted on November 13, 2011 by physcarl

With Christmas fast approaching, that time of year where you have no idea what to get anyone you know closes in on you. Carl Talks Physics helps you with 5 hot gift ideas for the lucky physicist in your life…

Christmas is once again upon us. Our usual high-street haunts now bombard us with the snowy imagery filled with smiles and ribboned gift boxes that we have come to associate with this most commercialised of all holidays. But we grow to love it and learn that it signals that time when we get to visit family, eat twice as much as normal and trade gifts with those around us.

We here at Carl Talks Physics would never turn down the opportunity to grab some free swag from friends and family; it only happens twice a year after all! Below we have drawn up a list of the top five gifts and presents we would love to receive that leave our minds boggled, our cogs turning and our inner child surfacing. Enjoy!

Don’t forget that you can save money by navigating to your favourite online shops through voucher and cash-back sites such as Quidco – more money for mince pies!

Top 5 Gifts to Give a Physicist This Christmas

5

Buckyballs – Addictive Magnetic Building Balls
Imagine a Rubik’s Cube that actually makes you smarter; an Erector Set that never stops erecting; a Hula Hoop you don’t look ridiculous playing with; Silly Putty that isn’t silly; cram it all in a jar, turn the fun up to 11, and you’ve got BuckyBalls! Each set contains 216 powerful rare earth magnets that can be shaped, molded, torn apart and snapped together in UNLIMITED WAYS. Make sculptures, puzzles, patterns, shapes, stick stuff to the fridge, invent a new game-trying to find something more useful is useless.

4

New Scientist Subscription
New Scientist magazine was launched in 1956 “for all those men and women who are interested in scientific discovery, and in its industrial, commercial and social consequences”. The brand’s mission is no different today – for its consumers, New Scientist reports, explores and interprets the results of human endeavour set in the context of society and culture.

3

Crystal Nebulae Crystal Sun Sculpture
The model was generated using one of the most advanced computer models of the solar corona in the World. It was produced at the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory by solar astronomers Drs Markus Aschwanden, Marc DeRosa and Carolus Schrijver. This model reproduces the structure of the solar coronal magnetic field as it appeared on 21 October 2000. As the image shows, the Sun was in a fairly active state that day, with a number of complexes of magnetic loops, and two large “coronal holes” in which open field lines leave the Sun and offer a route for charged particles to escape.

2

The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos

In this exhilarating new book, Brian Greene explores our most current understanding of the universe, its deepest laws of nature, and our continuing quest to know more. The Hidden Reality reveals how major developments in different branches of fundamental theoretical physics-relativistic, quantum, cosmological, unified, computational – have all led us to consider one or another variety of parallel universe. In some, they are separated from us by enormous stretches of space or time, in others they’re hovering millimetres away, in others still the very notion of their location proves to be a concept beyond our reach. Most extraordinarily, Greene shows how all of these parallel universe proposals emerge unbidden from the mathematics of theories developed to explain conventional data and observations of the cosmos.

1

Brian Cox – The Wonders Collection DVD
This superb four-disc collection brings together two fascinating documentary series presented by Professor Brian Cox. With incredible images and CGI footage this spellbinding series explains how the laws of physics carved natural wonders across the solar system. Witness giant ice fountains rising over 100km high; an ocean hidden beneath a frozen crust of ice; blood red storms twice the size of our planet, and immense volcanoes that could rip a planet apart. Who are we? Why are we here? Where do we come from? These are among the most enduring and profound questions we can ask and it is an essential part of human nature to want to find the answers. Our journey began 13.7 billion years ago with the beginning of our universe and in this series Prof. Brian Cox tells the epic story of our universe and shows how it’s story is also our story.

So there’s our top 5 gifts for physicists this Christmas. It has to be said though that this is the most realistic list we came up with; we doubt many people would be able to afford a seat on an upcoming Virgin Galactic launch which is around £126,000.

What do you want this Christmas?

Header image credit: Dr. Peter Terren

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