‘DJ Physics’ show at Glebelands

This time the show was hosted by Dr Martin Archer, a Space Plasma Physicist from the Imperial College in London and former Kiss FM DJ who combined these two passions into a talk titled ‘DJ Physics’.

Dr Archer took us through the world of sound using his virtual DJ booth, covering waves, frequency and other basic principles. Whilst spinning the latest tunes he explained the science behind cueing, beat matching, blending and EQing, seamlessly linking these to the science behind it and how this was then being applied in high level cutting-edge physics research. For example, he talked about cueing and how this can be used to explain the different types of waves (getting the audience out of their seats to help model this) and in particular to explain sound waves.

Dr Archer then used a Rubens tube to turn sound into fire to demonstrate the different frequencies and properties of a sound wave.

This was followed by a description of beat matching and how this could then be applied to looking for the Higgs Boson in the Large Hadron Collider or explaining the origins of the universe.

This interactive talk gave the audience the opportunity to test their own understanding by trying to match songs using their analogue wave signal and their frequency space signal, as well as demonstrating a basic speaker using just a Styrofoam bowl, to how a song’s pitch can be changed based on the speed of the track.

“The audience found this a very engaging talk, which really demonstrated the variety of opportunities available in the STEM subjects and will hopefully give our students the inspiration to go into these subjects for their future careers” said Mr Radwanski, Head of Science at Glebelands School.

Report and picture contributed by Glebelands School.