Four years ago, the concept of the Physics Slam jumped from Europe to the U.S. – and its landing point was the University of Oregon. Physics professors presented their research in a comprehensible, entertaining way to 800 people at that first slam and now, four years later, the UO is hosting a second one on April 8.
Jim Brau, director of the Center for High Energy Physics, was the one to bring the Physics Slam to UO.
“I’m very interested in communicating to the general public the exciting science that we do in physics,” said Brau. “So for the past ten years I’ve been looking for opportunities to do that.”
When physicists from around the world were in Eugene for a conference in 2011, Brau found his opportunity. He had heard of physics slams held in Europe and thought he’d bring the idea to Oregon with six physicists from the conference.
The demographics were broad, from grade school students to college students to retirees in the audience.
One of the participants was Brian Foster, an experimental physics professor at the University of Oxford, who focused on superstrings in his presentation.
Foster talked about how Einstein’s theory of relativity changed the way people thought about the universe and how superstrings can help people understand the interaction between space and time. He used his violin as a prop to present his material.
His presentation won the favor of the audience and he was voted the winner of the slam, earning a book entitled The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios.
Although the prize for the next slam won’t be revealed until the winner is crowned, UO Assistant Professor Eric Corwin is still preparing a presentation he thinks the audience will enjoy and understand.
“I think that it’s really useful for people to be able to see that science is not a dry or boring endeavor,” Corwin said. “Science is full of creativity and requires a lot of human input.”
He wants to allow people to see science from the inside out and get a sense of what scientists do.
Corwin plans to talk about soft condensed matter at this physics slam, with a focus on granular materials. He believes materials such as sand are not a solid, liquid or gas because they can take the properties of all these states of matter. They fall under a new state of matter altogether.
Aside from Corwin, five other UO faculty members will be competing in this year’s slam. They will each be focusing on their current research and when they have finished, audience members will have the opportunity to ask them questions.
Brau said he expects around 400 or 500 people to attend the event, and the success of the last slam validates these numbers.
In 2011, Foster found it gratifying to see so many people interested in understanding and questioning modern physics.
“I have very fond memories of the enthusiasm and friendliness of the people of Eugene,” he said. “It’s not every place you go that has several hundred people who want to come along and listen to a lecture about physics.”