Low cost optics: Luminisme

During a workshop in collaboration with a physicist, students in digital creation had to design four devices using smartphones or tablets and involving “traditional” optics. Their goal was to discover the effects of physics to the general public while trying a kind of “cheap” science, namely put in place a simple, effective and surprising effect.

During a workshop in collaboration with a physicist, students in digital creation had to design four devices using smartphones or tablets and involving “traditional” optics. Their goal was to discover the effects of physics to the general public while trying a kind of “cheap” science, namely put in place a simple, effective and surprising effect.

Students in scientific illustration have collaborated with a physicist around four major discoveries of quantum physics: the transistor, graphene, Bose-Einstein condensates and new superconductors. For each discovery, they decided to create a laboratory pop-up and a poster in the same graphic style, inspired by the years when the discovery took place. Here is the result. Download – Print – Cut – Tape – Read – it’s done. For you, for your class, for your friends … Click on the discovery of your choice.

Students in scientific illustration have attempted, in collaboration with physicists, to stage physics equations, and not just any of them: the Schrödinger equation for quantum physics, that of Navier-Stokes for fluid mechanics , the equation of general relativity, and the propagation equation of electromagnetic waves. Each group of students used an original graphic form: the pop-up book, the poetic animation, the comic strip, and the animated gif. Discover and use these productions to understand and stage these fundamental equations.

This course offers an introduction to communication and popularization of science to undergraduate physics students. Each year, some twenty students have been able to develop their own outreach projects around an aspect of fundamental physics for five days. These projects are accompanied by various exercises and courses on science communication. All the projects are presented at the end of the workshop by the students themselves during a public session at the University in front of a large audience.

Show donné le 23 mai 2018 par les étudiants de l’option vulgarisation du magistère de physique d’Orsay (Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay).

Un des projets réalisé dans le cadre de l’option vulgarisation 2018, Un pour la science et Tous pour un, un projet réalisé par Andréa Blin, Marjorie Galinier, Eloïse Mestre et Anna Ritz

Un des projets réalisé dans le cadre de l’option vulgarisation 2018, Power Couleur, un projet réalisé par Victor Faraut, Ondine Guerin, Ahmed Ramdane et Marie Vulliet

In 2018, physicists change the way of defining fundamental units like kilograms or meters. Units can now be defined based on scientific methods using only fundamental constants and well-established theories. No more prototypes, stallions or human references. Here are the 7 new “user manuals” to make these units, downloadable under various formats freely.

This course offers an introduction to communication and popularization of science to undergraduate physics students. Each year, some twenty students have been able to develop their own outreach projects around an aspect of fundamental physics for five days. These projects are accompanied by various exercises and courses on science communication. All the projects are presented at the end of the workshop by the students themselves during a public session at the University in front of a large audience.

Heloïse Chochois was embedded in the outreach class, and made a comics from her experience…

On the occasion of the year of superconductivity, in 2011, we had the opportunity to present an object in front of the Eiffel Tower. We then decided, with the designer A. Echasseriau, to make a small superconducting Eiffel Tower in the axis in the real one. Each floor of the Tower levitates with magnets placed above superconducting lozenges cooled with liquid nitrogen. This Eiffel Tower could then be “visited” by more than 20 000 tourists and bystanders. And since then she continues to be shown on different occasions.

Matter is made of billions of billions of very tiny particles: electrons, neutrons, protons… These particles are invisible and behave in a peculiar way, sometimes like clouds or waves in the sea, other times like small balls. They are known as “quantum” particles.

In this booklet, with scissors and scotch tape, we invite you to build yourself one electron, then a second one, and at the end, the weirdest object in the quantum world: a superconductor, a material able to levitate on magnets! These models are not real electrons of course, but they will help you get a better feeling for what is actually happening inside the matter around us.

À très basse température, dans un supraconducteur, les électrons dansent deux par deux.

Quand on refroidit énormément certains métaux, ils deviennent supraconducteurs. Cela veut dire que soudain, les électrons qui s’y déplacent ne subissent plus aucun choc : il n’y a plus de résistance électrique, et ça ne chauffe plus.

Comment est-ce possible?

D’abord, les électrons se mettent par deux, et forment ce qu’on appelle une «paire de Cooper », car c’est Léon Cooper, un physicien américain, qui les a découvertes. Une fois deux par deux, ils parviennent à se mettre tous ensemble et former une seule onde !

Un peu comme quand pleins de poissons dans la mer forment un banc de poissons et se déplacent tous  ensembles, ou quand des élèves se rangent en rang quand la sonne cloche.