Why Physics?

“When I was your age” the space shuttle was being developed but they had trouble with the heat shielding and the glue for the heat resistant tiles.

European countries got together to try and harness the mechanism that powers the sun to make energy from fusion

NASA, after over 30 years, finally gave the go ahead for a satellite based telescope – later named Hubble

We didn’t know how the universe was going to end or just how old it was. We just knew it was getting bigger.

– was it going to just keep on expanding or was there enough mass in the universe to slow the expansion to a stop and then start to contract back towards a big crunch

Or maybe even a big bounce – could we be just a part of an endless cycle? The good news was that in the late 1990s measurements showed that the universe is expanding and not slowing down so the big crunch idea became redundant. Or did it?

Thanks to Hubble we now know the age of the universe to be 13 Thanks to Hubble we now know the age of the universe to be 13.72 Billion years

Looking into the past and into the future Looking into the past and into the future. The Hubble Space Telescope shows the fate of a star like our sun, ending its life by casting off its outer layers of gas, Ultraviolet light from the dying star making the material glow. The burned-out star, called a white dwarf, is the white dot in the centre. Our sun will be ok for another 5 billion years then it’s curtains for the Earth.

This Hubble Space Telescope image captures the remnants of a long-dead star, exploding as a type 1a super nova and creating huge clouds of elements that are only created in the core of stars and in such explosions. These images are from 160,000 years ago as the remnants are 160,000 light-years away within one of the Milky Way’s closest galactic neighbors — the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).

The latest estimate of the number of galaxies in the universe, published last month, is that there are at least 10x more than previously thought, over 2 trillion with each containing around 100 billion stars.

A stimulating and challenging course. It is not easy, but that in itself is part of its value. Attaining top grades in the most challenging courses provides students with the greatest number of options/choices in terms of both courses and Universities.

Which is even better in Year 13 If you are interested in the smallest (quarks) and the biggest things (universe) as well as everything else in between anyway.

Physics is a genuine facilitator subject Physics is a genuine facilitator subject. In a study of Russell Group University courses the two A level subjects most frequently requested for their degree courses were- 1st Maths (Not Further Maths) 2nd Physics

Why Physics at The Forest?

Experienced Physics Teachers That you know and who know you. Combined teaching experience of 70 years between 3 Physics teachers.

Good exam results. How good you ask? Improving year on year

2016 ALPS RED 46% at grade A

Exciting Educational visits

March 2017 Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Masterclass In March 2017 we (year 13 students and I) will be going to the Rutherford Appleton laboratories for a Masterclass on particle physics, the LHC and also to look round the labs and particle accelerators. This is quite an exclusive event and we plan on making it an annual trip. STFC's Central Laser Facility is a partnership with UK and European universities who use the specialised laser equipment provided to carry out a broad range of experiments in physics, chemistry and biology.

2018 CERN- The Large Hadron Collider? We are currently looking into the feasibility of organising a trip to the LHC around Easter 2018.

And if you go on to take a degree there are countless opportunities beyond the subject itself if you so wish.

Physics is unique. No other subject allows you to gain such a deep understanding of the way the world works. You will learn how both the ordinary and extraordinary can be explained with ideas that are profound, imaginative and beautifully simple. Physics will give you the ability to communicate complex ideas, a hunger to make sense of patterns, the capacity to look past the superficial and a fluency with mathematics that will allow you to make predictions and solve problems. Physics graduates are not confined by their degree. Physics is universal - it provides the tools for understanding the unknown and addressing any problem in any sphere. That is why a degree in physics is so respected; the skills it develops will allow you to excel in just about any area you choose to work in.

A report produced for The Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Physics by PricewaterhouseCoopers Key findings The value of higher education to an individual Over a working life, the average graduate will earn around 23% more than those with two or more ‘A’ levels • Chemistry and physics graduates will earn, on average, over 30% more during their working lifetimes than ‘A’ level holders • The figure of 30% compares with between 13 and 16% for graduates in subjects including psychology, biological sciences, linguistics, and history And if you are interested in money?

So where are we now? ITER, the latest generation of European fusion reactor is predicted to be working successfully by 2050

The James Webb telescope, launching in 2018 and with a folding primary mirror of about 7x the area, will enable higher resolution images from galaxies further away. In conjunction with Hubble it will allow 3D image production. Hubble is in Earth orbit at about 300 miles above the Earth, but Webb will be at the L2 Lagrange point, one of the many points where the gravitational fields of the Sun/moon/Earth cancel out, about a million miles from Earth and further away from the sun. It will orbit the sun and not the Earth.

Measurements of the expansion of the universe show that it is not only expanding but the expansion is accelerating due to dark energy (we don’t know what that is). We are back in the same place now as when I was your age - some models suggest that the big crunch is once again a possibility for the future of the universe, dark energy may cause this too.

So which is it to be? Maybe you will be the one to find out?