Students Meeting at the Start of the Semester

Posted on 16/07/2018 by Pasquale Francesco Romano

Our Prague EPS Young Minds section organized already the fifth Students Meeting at the Start of the Semester, which currently has the status of an established event at the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering (FNSPE). This was truly demonstrated by the high attendance of an amazing amount of 100 people which increased again, compared to the previous semester. As usual, we invited a speaker who gave a talk on the recent topic in physics. This time we decided to invite young scientist Dr. Vaclav Potocek, who spent two years at Edinburgh University after obtaining his PhD, and is now part of the Quantum information group within the FNSPE, to give a talk on the problem of quantum computers. He introduced the basics of the quantum information theory, then explained the concept of quantum computer and presented recent results, together with the discussion on its possible applications, and future outlook in the field.

The event was advertised on our increasingly popular Facebook profile, on our web pages, and in the form of posters in several buildings of Czech Technical University, Charles University, and the Nuclear Physics Institute. Students and faculty from several universities and institutes came and enjoyed coffee and tea before the lecture and then attended the presentation. During the subsequent discussion, which is in our opinion the key part of the event, they enjoyed refreshments organized by us. During the event, we also advertised other activities organized by the Prague EPS YM section.

This event was generally rated as very good, popular and successful idea. The large attendance, which grows every semester, makes this the most popular single event organized by our EPS YM section and was achieved mainly thanks to a large number of posters that were distributed at the university campuses in Prague and also thanks to our active advertisement at social media. The meeting presents a unique networking opportunity that can connect faculty and students of different ages, fields of study and from different universities. In addition, such an event can be interesting for the public as well, the proof can be the attendance of several high school students at previous meetings. All these reasons prove the popularity and the need for such high-profile talks at our university.

Physics pizza party season 6

Posted on 16/07/201816/07/2018 by Pasquale Francesco Romano

One of the main goals of EPS Young Minds project is to connect young scientists from different physics fields. We have therefore decided to organize students’ colloquiums called Physics Pizza Party: students 4 students (PPP), where young scientists from our and other universities presented their research activities in an informal manner. After the success of these colloquiums in the previous semesters, PPP has shown to be a successful concept also in this summer semester of 2018.

Totally, three PPP events were organized this semester, where different physics fields were presented by students from Faculty of Mathematics and Physics and Faculty of Science of the Charles University and by students from the FNSPE CTU in Prague. Students’ research talks presented topics such as determination of protein structure, atomic force microscopy or search for the life in the solar system. The last colloquium was organized in the collaboration with The Union of Czech Mathematicians and Physicists.

Majority of invited speakers have not experienced before presenting their research activities in front of the audience which was unfamiliar with the topic. Despite this fact, each talk was perfectly prepared, and therefore there was no problem to understand the given topic. These events were scheduled for 90 minutes each, with half of the time dedicated to the presentation and another half to the discussion, but due to participants’ interest and their questions, in the end, the colloquiums took even more time – around 2 hours. According to the speakers, it was a very rewarding experience for them.

Advertisement of the events was made in form of posters placed in the buildings of FMP CU and FNSPE CTU. To catch the interest of as many participants as possible, these colloquiums were also promoted through social networks such as Facebook and Instagram. Due to the promotion, which aroused high interest for the PPP events, the average number of participants was around 30 students per one colloquium.

The Prague EPS Young Minds Section found these colloquiums rewarding since the “students for students” style of presentations is still very rare in our country and we were one of the first who organized this kind of meetings. According to the feedback from our participants, we concluded that our colloquiums were successful since they were very positively rated. Thanks to this positive feedback and the high number of attendees, we would like to continue with this activity during the upcoming academic year.

Physics Cafè 2

Posted on 16/07/2018 by Pasquale Francesco Romano

Similarly, as in the previous semesters, Prague EPS Young Minds, together with JCMF (the Union of Czech Mathematicians and Physicists) and CFS (Czech Society of Physics), organized Physics Café during the spring semester of 2018. The aim of the project was to further enhance the achievements gained in previous volumes of Physics Café – to organize informal meetings related to the physics and related scientific fields where students and senior academics can meet each other and share their experience and interests.

Because of the high ratio of student participants on meetings (for presentations, discussions etc), the meetings in this semester were more informal than the previous ones. In total, two meetings were organized during the semester.
The first one was dedicated to the “blind presentation” session, the specific format of presenting to the audience. Firstly, organizers of Physics Café prepared several slides for each volunteer, who has come forward. Without knowing the slides, content or theme of the presentation, volunteers presented a given topic. This led to funny situations when speakers often talked about something different than their slides were dedicated to, trying to maintain the idea they got when seeing the first slide of the given presentation. Each performance was rated by the audience. In the end, two best volunteers were awarded. This meeting attracted around 30 people.
The second meeting was dedicated to free discussion of Prague EPS Young Minds members with students, senior academics, and other audience. The main topics of the discussion were future plans of the Prague EPS Young Minds (new ideas and proposals, what should be improved, what should not be changed etc). The annual election of the new board of our section – the president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer was also part of the programme for this meeting.

To conclude, there were not organized as many Physics Café as we originally wanted, but the quality of meetings continue to be at the same or even higher level compared to previous semesters. We plan to continue with the Physics Café concept in the future, hopefully with higher activity of senior academics.

International Particle Physics Masterclasses 2018

Posted on 16/07/201816/07/2018 by Pasquale Francesco Romano

This year’s International Particle Physics Masterclasses were held at the FNSPE CTU in Prague. This annual event, traditionally held during the first four months of the year in many institutions around the world, gives 15- to 19-year-old high school students an opportunity to discover and become familiar with particle physics. Speaking in numbers, approximately 10.000 high school students from 47 countries participate every year, effectively obtaining insight into topics and methods of basic research. The students are not only allowed to spend a whole day outside of school without being considered a truant, but they also receive a chance to choose and carry out an experiment themselves by performing measurements on real data from particle physics experiments at CERN. Almost 200 universities or research centers are involved in this project.

This year, the event took place on March 9, at the faculty’s headquarters with 60 registered and 53 participating high-school students. The Czech part of the project is being organized in cooperation with the International Particle Physics Outreach Group, Prague EPS Young Minds section, and CERN. The students are given a unique opportunity to obtain insight into the day-to-day business of a particle physicist without the necessity of any prior knowledge of the subject.
Also, on February 12th, Masterclasses dedicated to women students exclusively were organized. The principle is the same, aiming to encourage young women to study physics and related fields and also the programme of the event had the same structure as the Masterclasses held in March.

In the morning, the students attended a series of instructive lectures given by scientists working at CERN, whereas in the afternoon, an actual data analysis from two major LHC experiments – LHCb and ATLAS – was carried out. This year, they could either find the Higgs boson at the ATLAS or discover b-physics at the LHCb experiment. The results of the whole group were merged and during a video conference presented to experts at CERN and students from other institutes from all over the world, where International Particle Physics Masterclasses were held on the same day.

At the very end, the organizers thanked the students for participating and the most active ones of them, as well as the speakers who talked to CERN during the conference, were awarded prizes of the organizers’ choosing. During the day, organizers took care of having the lunch delivered as well as the preparation of refreshments, beverages, and coffee for participating students.

Students Meeting at the Start of the Semester

Posted on 20/01/2018 by ggunaratnam

SSP_prague_1 The Students Meeting at the Start of the Semester took place for the fourth time and is beginning to have the status of an established event at the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering (FNSPE). This was mirrored by the high attendance of almost 70 people which increased again, compared to the previous semester. As usual, we invited a high-profile speaker in the Czech Republic to give a talk at our university. This time, because of the recent Nobel Prize in the field, we invited Prof. Jiri Podolsky from Charles University to speak about gravitational waves which is the main topic of his research.
The event was advertised in a timely manner on our increasingly popular Facebook profile, on our web pages, and in the form of posters in several buildings of Czech Technical University and Charles University. Students and faculty from several universities came and enjoyed coffee and tea before the lecture and then attended the presentation. During the subsequent discussion, which is in our opinion the most important part of the event, they enjoyed refreshments organized by us. During the event, we also advertised other activities organized by the Prague EPS YM section.
This event was generally rated as a good idea. The large attendance makes this the most popular single event organized by our EPS YM section and was achieved mainly thanks to the large number of posters that were distributed at the university campuses in Prague. The meeting presents a unique networking opportunity that can connect faculty and students of different ages and from different universities. In addition, such an event can be interesting for the public as well. All these reasons accentuate the need of such high-profile talks at our university.

Physics Café 2

Posted on 20/01/201821/01/2018 by ggunaratnam

20171127_185826 During the winter semester of 2017, a follow-up of the previous semester’s Physics Café was organised as one of the Prague EPS Young Minds events. This time, the aim of the Physics Café project was to further enhance the achievements gained during the first volume of Physics Café i.e. to provide a platform for informal meetings of university students and (senior) scientists and people from academia, with a strong emphasis on informality, and to promote physics and physics related scientific fields among the students.

This semester’s Physics Café was more challenging than ever before. There were major difficulties to find an appropriate venue since the previous one was not suitable for holding the events anymore, and we also struggled to persuade the senior scientists to join (mainly due to their workload). In the end, we managed to organise one event within the Physics Café project. The event called For Science to the Edge of the World was a compilation of short presentations of researchers (mainly from the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and NPI AV CR) who travelled the world to do science, physics in particular. To keep the presentations brief and entertaining, we asked each presenter (9 people in total) to make a Pecha Kucha styled presentation (20 slides, each per 20 seconds). The event, held in the popular Skautský Institut Café in the centre of Prague, attracted around 50 people, making it our most successful Physics Café event ever. During the evening, presenters shared their experience of their research stays, internships, and conferences, all of it in the nippy and fun pace. After the presentation part was finished, a non-moderated discussion involving both the presenters and the audience followed.

It can be concluded that even though we organised not as many Physics Café events as we planned for, we met the expectations for the event quality wise. Physics cafe with its varying programme is getting more and more popular among students and scientists in Prague.

Physics pizza party season 5

Posted on 20/01/201821/01/2018 by ggunaratnam

One of the main goals of EPS Young Minds project is to connect young scientists among different physics fields. Therefore, Prague section is organizing students’ colloquiums named Physics Pizza Party: Students 4 students, where young scientists from different universities and research fields presented their research activities. These events prove to be very successful in winter semester in 2017.
Totally, we organized four colloquiums this semester, where different physics fields were presented by Ph.D. and master students from our faculty. Topics such as luminescent nanocrystals, mechanics of free fall in practice and modeling of quasicrystals were presented at the colloquiums. For most of invited speakers, it was their first experience to present their research activities in front of the audience which had not been familiar with the topic. Despite of this fact, each talk was perfectly prepared, and therefore it wasn’t difficult to understand given topic. Each event was scheduled for about 90 minutes with half of the time dedicated for the presentation and other half for the discussion, but due to the big interest from the audience and their questions during and after presentation, average time of colloquiums was about 2 hours. According to the speakers it was very rewarding experience for them.

Event promotion was made in form of posters placed in school buildings. It was also advertised on our social webpages, such as Facebook and Instagram, for the purpose of inviting as many participants as possible. Due to this advertisement and students’ high interest, our colloquiums had attendance around 40 students per one colloquium.

The Prague EPS Young Minds Section found these colloquiums rewarding as the “students for students” style of presentations is still rare in our country and is not frequently done by any other organisations. Based on the warm reaction and positive feedback received from colloquiums’ participants, we assume that they were successful. The high number of regular as well as occasional participants motivates us to continue with this activity.

Physics pizza party season 4

Posted on 11/08/2017 by ggunaratnam

Since one of the main goals of EPS Young Minds project is to connect young scientists among different physics fields, Prague section decided to organize students’ colloquiums named Physics Pizza Party: Students 4 students, where young scientists from different universities and research fields presented their research activities. These events prove to be very successful for three subsequent semesters: winter 2016, summer 2016 and winter 2017.

This semester we organized totally of four colloquiums. Three talks were from the research fields and one talk from the industry. Research talks presented results about study of the hypernuclei, nanotechnology and quantum walks. These talks were presented by the two PhD students (CTU in Prague and Czech Academy of Sciences) and by the one master student (CTU in Prague). In the order to broad our horizons outside purely academic talks, we invited one speaker from the modern software company. The speaker introduced modern project management methods used in the software development.

Although majority of invited speakers already presented their research activities in front of the experts in their respective fields, almost none of them had any experience with presenting in front of general audience that were not familiar with the topic. Despite of this fact, each talk was perfectly prepared, and therefore there was no problem to understand given topic. Each event was scheduled for about 60 minutes, but with discussion during and after presentation, average time of colloquiums was about 90 minutes and even more. According to the speakers it was very rewarding experience for them.

All four events were advertised in form of posters, which were placed in school buildings. For the purpose of inviting as many participants as possible, we also advertised it on our social sites, namely Facebook and Twitter. Thanks to this advertisement, our students’ colloquiums had large attendance. Average number of participants was around 30 students per one colloquium.

The Prague EPS Young Minds Section found these colloquiums rewarding, since this style of presentation “students for students” is still very rare in our country and we were one of the first who organized this style of colloquiums. According to the feedback from our participants, we concluded that our colloquiums were successful, since they were very positively rated by participants. Thanks to these positive feedback and high number of participants, we would like to continue with this activity – this is what students in Prague expect as well.

Students Meeting at the Start of the Semester

Posted on 11/08/2017 by ggunaratnam

Students Meetings, organised by Prague EPS Young Minds section at the beginning of the semester, are getting more and more popular among students of Czech Technical University in Prague. The third, the last one, was in March 2017.

After gravitational waves and manned and unmanned flights to Mars we stayed in the topic of Universe, but from a bit different point of view. Now the dean of the Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering of Czech Technical University in Prague gave the talk about physics of Star Trek – presenting various inventions, similar to science fiction gadget in the movie. This topic was extremely popular and in the future we will probably focus on the events with the topic of the same kind.

Before the lecture, we advertised all of the planned events of our section, as well as the section itself. During the discussions, it was a great opportunity to meet students and talk with them about their opinion on our activities.

Approximately 70 students came and enjoyed coffee and tea before the lecture and then attended the presentation. During the subsequent discussion, they enjoyed refreshments that were partially sponsored by rohlik.cz, czech online food distributor.

The large attendance at the event was mainly thanks to the large number of posters, that were distributed in the universities in Prague. Our event was as well shared in our Facebook sites and than shared by several other sites.

This event was again generally rated as a good idea. There is no doubt, that such an event is a unique opportunity to connect students of different age and from different universities, via an interesting multi-discipline contemporary presentation, that everybody is interested in.

Physics Café

Posted on 11/08/2017 by ggunaratnam

For the first time, Prague EPS Young Minds decided to organise informal events for students to meet with senior academics. Three events in total were held within the Physics Café platform – two open discussions and one pub quiz. All of these were successful beyond expectations, with average attendance of 30 people per an event. The events were advertised in form of posters, which were placed in school buildings. We also advertised it on our social sites, namely Facebook and Twitter.
The first event was especially challenging for us. Since all the previous Prague EPS Young Minds event were held within the university campus, much effort was put in a search for appropriate café or a similar venue. Once this was covered, our next concern was about the number of people who would attend an event outside the campus. The topic of the first open discussion was “Physics of the 21st Century – What Does It Stand For?” and three scientists took part in it. The event attracted 29 people while about one quarter of the people attending were non-students.
The second Physics Café was organized in the collaboration with the Czech Union of Mathematicians and Physicist. This event was used for the award ceremony and the Union honored their members for their lifetime benefits for the popularization of the physics. It provided great opportunity for informal discussion on the topic “The role of scientist outside of the academic world”.
The last event from the first series of the Physics Café was dedicated to the competition known as Pub Quiz. The questions cover the topic from the world of science, especially they were focused on curious and funny facts from physics. In all cases, the official program was followed by more informal discussions.
In total, three events of the Physics Café were visited approximately by 90 people. This type of event was rated as a good idea and was attractive for students as well as for the senior academics of the Czech Union of Mathematicians and Physicist. Thanks to the positive feedback, there are not doubts, that Physics Café will continue in the future.