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Education and outreach

Education and outreach

Web life: electrolights

10 Apr 2014
Taken from the April 2014 issue of Physics World
Homepage of electrolights

So what is the site about?

The electrolights blog aims to “explain day-to-day phenomena in simple terms and [show] that physics, though mind-boggling sometimes, is really about the basic things in life”. The blog is aimed at non-experts, especially students, and is written in a straightforward style reminiscent of the Simple English Wikipedia, which is designed to be understood by children, adults who are trying to learn English and people with learning difficulties.

What are some of the topics covered?

Although some posts do indeed focus on the physics of everyday things, such as compact discs, the subject matter of others is decidedly more esoteric, with black holes, double-slit experiments and the theory of relativity all covered. Posts about conventional physics often put a fresh spin on the topic. For example, a May 2013 post about “Weighing the Earth” does a nice job of framing the difference between weight and mass, noting that “to weigh something, anything, means to determine the force being exerted on that thing by another body…You can’t have a body in isolation, in complete isolation, away from any other planet, star or galaxy, in the depths of vacuous space and talk about its weight”. However, it continues, “that isolated body will have a mass, regardless of it being on its own or not”. Another great example is a February 2014 post about addition and subtraction, which reveals that even the most straightforward mathematical operations have unexpected depths.

Who is behind it?

The author of electrolights is Swetam Gungah, a London-based mathematical physicist who has made his career in the financial industry and is currently director of business development at S&P Capital IQ. A staunch advocate of science outreach, Gungah also occasionally writes for the Institute of Physics-supported blog physicsfocus and gives talks around the UK about the importance of physics and other STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.

Can you give me a sample quote?

From a July 2012 post entitled “Bright”, which begins with the causes of the seasons and then moves on to discuss the challenges of using solar energy: “In a matter of days…the Earth will be at its furthest from the Sun. Yet, in the Northern hemisphere, summer temperatures will be in the mid-20s Celsius. Isn’t it strange that it’s hotter in the Northern hemisphere when the Earth is actually furthest from the Sun? Shouldn’t it be cooler instead? Had things been plain and simple, that’s how you would expect the temperature to vary: the closer one is to the Sun, the warmer one should be. ..But things aren’t that plain – though they can still be simple – and therefore it is the tilt of the Earth that determines the season, not its distance from the Sun. Had the Earth not tilted at 23.5° from the vertical, the seasons would have been pretty much non-existent. A minimal and boring hot/cold variation would have prevailed throughout the year depending on how far the Earth was from the Sun as opposed to how much it was leaning off its axis of rotation.”

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