“Kids aren’t intimidated by cutting edge physics,” says physics rock star on tour

The Institute of Physics

27 June 2008

Dr Mark Lewney

As Dr Mark Lewney, presenter of the Institute of Physics (IOP)’s 2008 Schools and College Lecture, prepares to pass the half-year mark in his 35-venue tour of the country with a lecture at the Royal Institution on Tuesday, 1 July, he has reflected upon the success of the tour so far. 

Mark has taken the Schools and College Lecture, ‘Rock in 11 dimensions: where physics and guitars collide’ to 35 venues across the country, with 23 more to go, and says that thus far the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

The lecture, which builds on everyday physics to explain groundbreaking and very advanced research to 14-16 year old students, reveals the secrets behind the distinctive sounds of rock guitars and how string vibrations might answer fundamental questions about the Big Bang, our universe’s starting point.

Mark, an acoustic physicist who works at the UK Intellectual Property Office in Newport, when challenged on introducing such complicated physics to young audiences, said, “Introducing string theory to 14 year old is fine, I think. Just sticking with less challenging physics until A level is a false economy. It pushes all the hurdles to the end of the race.

“The response from students so far has been incredibly positive – at Bolton alone I had almost 900 in the audience, which really made my day.  Kids aren't intimidated by cutting edge physics in the same way as adults because they don't yet know what they don't know.”

The lecture topic is timely as it has given Mark the opportunity to introduce audiences to the biggest physics experiment ever built, due to kick off later this summer, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, and explain why the experiment is causing such a buzz in the world of physics.

Scientists have suggested that the LHC might let us glimpse what the universe was like in its first trillionth of a second and may even help us discover the origins and nature of matter.

Mark said, “Everyone should be excited to live at a time when this experiment is so new and we’re entering such unknown territory. People in future will say, ‘Wow! Imagine living back then!’”

Mark was already used to combining physics and rock before he took on the challenge of IOP’s 2008 Schools and College Lecture tour. He won the first FameLab competition at the Cheltenham Science Festival in 2005 – regarded as the X Factor for scientists.

He has also made many appearances on TV and radio, including ‘The Physics of Rock Guitar’ on Channel 4 and as “the Rock Doctor” on Children’s BBC.

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