Page 13 - The Malvernian - December 2023
P. 13
THE MALVERNIAN
Lucretian Society
‘From Planck’s Constant to Quantum Mechanics’ – Dr Francesco Gonnella
On Thursday 9 November we were privileged to welcome back Dr Francesco Gonnella to Malvern to give a lecture titled: ‘From Planck’s Constant to Quantum Mechanics’ as part of the series of Lucretian Society lectures. He started off by looking at ancient mechanics and the theories that existed then, before looking at the different models of the atom and how they developed and improved upon each other. He then looked at Planck and how to calculate his formula, before moving onto the emission spectrum, the Compton effect and De Broglie’s Hypothesis. Finally he looked at quantum mechanics and how it describes a lot of behaviours but overall “nobody fully understands quantum mechanics” (Richard Feynman). This was a thoroughly interesting lecture and allowed us to expand and look deeper into the knowledge we had learned in our lessons.
Isabelle Wilson, Upper Sixth (No.3)
THE MALVERNIAN
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Radio Receivers – Physics Workshop
On Wednesday 4 October, the Lucretian Society held a workshop on radio receivers. Each participant was given a kit consisting of a coil, an antenna, a diode and a variable capacitor. First we built the radio receiver with the help of instructions on a piece of paper. The hardest part was probably winding a wire neatly around a soft iron core to create a solenoid to induce a flow of charge. When we were done, we extended our antenna and, using a transmitter, tuned our radio receiver to the Song of Jerusalem, which was played as a frequency by a teacher’s laptop. Then we had to listen carefully to decipher a Morse code that was played next. To help us, we had a sheet with the translated alphabet. Finally, we then used an old-fashioned spark gap transmitter to send some Morse code.
All in all, the workshop was a lot of fun and very informative. I am already looking forward to the next workshop.
Paul Emmerich, Lower Sixth (No.9)
