By Hamish Johnston
Last night a crack team of Physics World journalists plus scientists from Imperial College London cleaned up at the Big Science Pub Quiz. We won by racking up an impressive 31 points in the main competition and also triumphed in the build-it-from-tin-foil round. Team member Margaret Harris also bagged the first shout-out round by identifying the Higgs boson from cryptic clues – her reward was a plush toy Higgs boson.
The annual quiz is organized by the media office at Imperial College and this year’s event attracted 100 journalists and Imperial scientists, who were split into nine teams.
Our team was called Casino Royale School of Mines and included me, Tushna Commissariat, Margaret Harris and Matin Durrani from Physics World. Rounding out the roster from Imperial were Arash Mostofi, Jodie Melbourne, Pakatip Ruenraroengsak, Karl Sandeman and Neil Alford.
Alford is no stranger to Physics World, as his work on room-temperature masers made it into our top 10 breakthroughs for 2012.
Joint runners-up were the Rock Stars, who hailed from Imperials’ Earth Sciences Department and Nature, and the Biohazards. The latter were picked from Imperial’s Bioengineering Department and had to go it alone because their partners from New Scientist didn’t turn up. Other media outlets represented were the Daily Telegraph, BBC, The Times, The Engineer and Chemistry World.
At the end of the evening we were each presented with an engraved glass tankard (see photo) and made our way out into the London night – some more visible than others!
