Long time no science - 3 minute wonder champion

I've just remembered about this blog and feel like on a Sunday morning whilst trying not to do my thesis I should update it.
So what's been happening then?

Well the most recent of things is that in October time I took part in a competition called the 3 minute wonder, hosted by the IoP (Institute of Physics)....and I only won!

Let me just explain the idea behind 3MW. It's the opportunity for research scientists to explain their work to an interested audience in 3 minutes. This sort of communication skill is incredibly important and useful as it requires us to convey a lot of information in a short time, as let's be honest anything beyond 3 minutes when someone is explaining resonance phonon energies in nano...zzzzzzz..

After winning this, I was invited to the national finals at the Royal Institutions Faraday Lecture theatre.

I'm probably in there somewhere, if in the future I invent time travel.

This lecture hall has had loads of famous scientists discuss their work throughout the years most notably at Christmas for the Christmas lecutres.
These include scientists from Faraday to Carl Sagan, it literally is unbelievable that I was afforded the honour to give a talk about my work in this hall.



On the final I sat waiting for my turn, I was 5th out of 10 incredible young scientists. All of whom gave very interesting talks, with so many unique and inspiring ways of explaining science. My most notable memory was a woman who was talking about hunting for exo-planets and compared finding an exo-planet to finding the shadow cast by a button illuminated by a bike light several miles away!!!

Elizabeth is next - she's talking about how she photographs planets! #3MWFinal pic.twitter.com/9zBtWQnmST

— Meriame Berboucha (@MBerboucha) May 5, 2016

(I can't see the button!!)

There were also 4 incredible judges. From left to right Fran Scott (CCBC), Marek Kukula (Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich), Helen Thomas (Exec Producer BBC Science) and Maggie Philbin (Bang Goes The Theory).

So I get up, bit nervous about talking infront of 300ish people and as soon as I start the countdown of 3 minutes begins. First of all I dropped my laser pointer, and I thought, well that's about right isn't it, but I quickly recovered, then just started talking about my work, the nanoscale, modern technology, my work on nanotubes and studying Raman and vibrations. Next thing I knew, everyone was clapping and it was all over. I had lots of questions thrown at me about my work, and even more during the break. The judges provided feedback (which was very complimentary) then I sat down listening to the other fantastic talks trying to process what just happened.

At the end of the evening we the scores were counted and before the winner announced there was an audience vote. I was gob-smacked when the graph came up showing that the audience voted for me as people's choice. I got our my seat trying not to fall over and embarrass myself and then shook hands with the President of the IoP who presented me with people's choice award. Then the moment I sat down, next thing I knew I was up again accepting the award and comically sized cheque as the winner of the 3 minute wonder for 2015/16

And finally the winner of #3MWFinal 2016 is @SpenJoeScience pic.twitter.com/TYZDZKqbO1

— Institute of Physics (@PhysicsNews) May 5, 2016

I'm sharing this now, as It's such a memorable night for me, I'm so glad to have been given the chance to lecture in this hall. It was truly great to talk about my work and have so many people ask questions and be interested in it. It was awesome to see other talented young scientists talk about their work with their own unique flare and passion for their subject. I fully recommend any scientist that wants to do some form of sci comm event or practice their communication skills to take part in this competition. 

The Sound of Physics - Raman Spectroscopy

So funnily enough my PhD is in Raman spectroscopy and currently I'm in Jena at a conference on Raman Spectroscopy, so not too many brain cells were stretched when my first blog post is on Raman Spectorscopy.
If you ask anyone here at the conference explain Raman, they'll probably say something similar to me along the lines of
"Measurement of low energy excitations of molecular or crystalline systems, most commonly vibrational modes, by use of ineleastic scattering of light."
But that doesn't really help when explaining to someone who has no idea what any of that means, namely people with out a degree in physics. So how do I go about demystifying this and explaining the concept.

Well first off I'm going to say what Raman Spectroscopy does for us. As I'm sitting here I gather a real appreciation for the scale of the field, the technique is used widely in physics for looking at the structure of crystals, but also spans to biomedical research to characterise drugs and understand how the skin absorbs things.
So what is it?
Well Raman is a tool, a tool to look at the structure of things, everything essentially has a unique Raman fingerprint and using this technique we can identify the compositions and structure of a sample by understanding this finger print.

Let me elaborate on this thought, as I sit here tapping my finger on the wooden table I hear a sound, this is the result of my imparting energy to the table, energy transfers through the whole structure of the table and a sound is generated due to the vibrations, try it yourself, and you know the sounds, a solid 'thunk' if you heard it experience will tell you it's wood. Now the glass next to me, I tap that and the sound produced is much lighter, a ringing sound that lasts as the vibrations are dissipated through the glass. I'm sure you know this sound as well. In fact you can identify most things by the sound they make, and that is akin to Raman. Instead of hitting an object, we transfer energy using a laser, this produces vibrations and by looking at the 'spectra' we can identify the structure.

Uh-oh! Spectra....I've said something new, so now let's get physical.
After exciting our material with a laser and energy is transferred to the vibrations, the system then re emits the light, except it doesn't have the same energy, it can't, as some of it has been turned to vibrations. So it emits this light at a different energy to the incident energy.
If we count the photons of light emitted and compare them to the incident light energy then that difference must be the energy of the vibration.
There we go, Raman Spectroscopy in a nutshell.

So to review in a bit more physical way
When I get back to a computer I'll repost this with pictures and equations, but hope this helps.