All aboard the Light Express

What is the Light Express Roadshow? A travelling laser light show from the University of Southampton's School of Physics and Astronomy. The show is filled with spectacular demonstrations and accompanied by a fascinating talk about the laser technology behind the internet. The show visits schools around the South-East region and performs about 30x a year.

Take a look at some of Dr James Gates's photographs of the show. It takes us about 3 hours to get ready for a school laser show - which lasts about an hour.

The show is free for schools and is aimed at GCSE Science students - or AS/A Level Physics students.

The Light Express Roadshow - March madness!

After Science week next came the 'Creating the future' science conference for Year 10 students on 27th. The Conference included 4 lectures - with lots of explosions and dry ice from the speakers - and was held in the Turner Sims Concert Hall.
David Phillips OBE from Imperial College gave a talk 'Light Relief' on the use of lasers in medicine. The talk was filled with gory slides, glow in the dark chemicals and loud noises. It was really good.

Then came "The Mathematics of Shadows and Slices." We learned that shadows are powerful things when combined with a little mathematics! Dr Marvin Jones, School of Mathematics talked about how maths and shadows were used to develop CAT scans.

We got some good feedback for the Light Express Show from students which included comments such as: ‘Cool lasers!’, ‘It was entertaining and involved the audience so we stayed engaged and interested. It was easy to follow.’ and - ‘It was well explained and easy to understand, with interesting practical demonstrations and an engaging start (the light show).’ - So we were pleased!

Lastly Prof Phil Bartlett gave a talk on building nanostructures “Nanostructured Metals, Butterflies and Lotus Leaves.”

We were lucky to IBM supporting the event too with some of their Outreach activities. About 320 students attended and we had some great feedback.