Well last week was very entertaining! I spent the whole of the week at the BA festival of science that was held in York. On Tuesday morning I gave a talk called "how to build a fusion reactor" in which I described laser driven fusion. I was lucky enough to be picked as a speaker for the Xchange that evening in the "V bar". This involved me giving a 10 min talk about the topic I spoke about in the morning and then the rowdy crowd could debate and ask questions. It was alot of fun and I really liked the informal format of it.

I then spent a further two days demonstrating tricks with light on the NOISE stand and speaking to young people about how good it is to be a scientist. Hope I made at least one person intersted!

Was all alot of fun and there was of course the inevitable drinking and merry-making in the evenings with new and old friends alike! Roll on Liverpool 2008 :-)

If you get a chance and have access to BBC4 then I recomment watching the series called atom. It is presented by Jim Al Khalili (one of my physics lecturers from surrey) and it is very cool! The first part was on last night (thursday) at 9pm. If you want to know the history of the physics the underpins the whole of modern science its worth a watch, and Jim is very entertaining!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/atom.shtml

Hi all

Been in Poland on a conference! Warsaw is an interesting place - if a little ugly - and the beer is cheap! The conference was on plasma physics and usually has about 800 delegates! I gave a talk on the data from my last experiment and I think it went down well. The conference wasn't as good as in previous years but it didn't matter too much because I got the opportunity to catch up with UK and other collaborators who i haven't seen for a while. Socially we had an excellent time - there are plenty of good bars and restaurants to frequent! We even got to go to a traditional polish ranch for the conference dinner which was wall to wall meat and polish vodka, awesome!

Well, since being back, i've been writing papers, and now am back in the lab doing tests on the laser to make the performance better.

Shortly after my last experiment I had to co-ordinate and help my european collegues write a large proposal to get funding to start an initial training network in europe to support the HiPER project (http://www.hiper-laser.org/). We all put alot of effort in but I recently had news that we were unsuccessful in obtaining the money :-( boo!

Thats the general problem with science - you have to apply for grants from funding bodies to do any projects you want. The competition is fierce and the odds are always slim. It also seems the further up the food chain you go the more time you spend writing such proposals. You have to be able to cope with these proposals getting rejected because the odds of getting funding are ~1 in 5! Oh well there are always downsides to everything! 

Am gearing up for a nice holiday in windermere now so i'm happy! :-)

I have had quite a busy year so far! I had my first experiment as principal investigator (ooh grown up!) and as far as I know I am the youngest so far! I was quite apprehensive, as even though I  have run many experiments the buck never stopped at me! I could always pass it up in times of trouble. Anyway the worries were unfounded because the experiment went really well. The collaboration was a new one for me, with groups from Paris, Milan and Piza. The folks I got on my experiment were all lovely and we all gelled well which is so important for an experiment to be successful.

The piccie I have included shows the target mount with all the different instruments surrounding it. The target mount hold the targets that we shoot the laser at.

Ah moving house! Took me four days to pack all my stuff - I have no idea where it all came from. I suspect I had an extra dimension in my house to accomodate it! I have moved from my studio in oxford and upgraded to a nice apartment in a town near oxford. Am very pleased with myself!

I am gearing up now to see you all at Cheltenham science festival, where I will be giving demonstrations about lasers - and EXTREME conditions!

See you all there! :-)

Well its been a while since i've blogged because its been a busy old time for me! It started with a trip to Boston to present a talk at a conference. It was a really good trip, and Boston is an excellent city. You can actually walk around it which is unusual in america where most places you have to drive to. Lots of drinking and merriment to be had also!

As soon as I got back, we started a new experiment that ran right up until December 22nd! Too near to crimbo for my liking! The experiment was looking at what properties the electron beam has that is created when our laser strikes a target. This time we were looking at the effect of laser pulse duration and intensity as factors effecting electron production. I think we got some intereseting data even though my instrument didn't work :-(

Coming back after christmas has been hard but excitingly a paper I had submitted to a good journal looks like its going to be accepted which is good news for the new year. Getting papers accepted to good journals is a really labourious task that can take up to a year to conclude! Problem is if you submit to a lesser journal (which is easier) it doesn't count as well when summarising progress either to the funding bodies or the institution!

Did a really cool NOISE engagement where I got to sit on a panel at the Association for science education conference in Birmingham. The panel was to discuss why girls don't often chose to take physics at school and beyond and how increase their participation. The panel had some really interesting people including Dame Julia Higgins (Imperial college), Patricial Fara (academic and author) and Sue Nelson (BBC science correspondent). I really enjoyed the debate and then we were invited to the dinner and drinks reception afterwawrds which meant lots of free alcohol, bonus!

Anyway thats enough from me for the moment, i'll write soon....

I forgot to add this picture of me in my flamenco get up doing a performance in oxford, get me! Ha ha almost look convincing.....

Well I'm back from holiday and into a new job. I have been given a permanent job here at the lab. Permanent jobs are like gold dust in science so I'm pretty chuffed about it! I'll still be doing research but I'll also be enabling others to do their research on VULCAN too. Lots of new things afoot...................

Its the last week of the experiment this week. We have a lot to achieve but all I can think about is that I'm taking a holiday after Friday! Overall we've been successful but I'm dissapointed that one of my diagnostics failed. I'm content in the knowledge that it was physics rather that me though! Luckily things never get too bleak as there is always beer and curry after the days work to cheer things up!

I rushed off from the experiment to attend the Swindon Schools Science Festival on the 13th of July. My role was to demonstrate an aspect of my work and talk about what I do for a living. I chose to demonstrate plasma using a plasma ball and then prove a current was flowing through the gas inside through lighting up a strip light by touching it on the ball. This seemed to go down very well with everyone, inluding one woman and her son who couldn't believe their eyes. She said she was going to phone all her friends to tell them what she'd seen, but she didn't think they would believe her!

I had lots of return visits to the experiment, it seemed to have some kind of hypnotic power over everyone! All in all I think the day was a success and there were smiles all round.

Have been very busy setting up my new experiment. We are coming to the end of the setting up phase of two weeks and mild panic is beginning to set in knowing that we should be firing the laser by Monday! It usually comes together on time so i'm sure it will! Spend all of yesterday afternoon in dark trying to synchronise our main laser beam and probe beams (to look at the main laser beam interacting with a target), its always a long job but we felt really good after we had finished!

Well the trip to Madrid was okay. Conferences usually have shorter days that this one, 8.30 in the morning until 7 in the evening! Mind you the sun was so fierce we were all grateful to be in the air conditioned lecture hall during the day! The evenings were pretty good though. Rioja and tapas filled nights with lots of fun and believe it or not, physics discussion!! Its one of the only opportunities I get to discuss things with my collaborators from around the globe face to face. Normally its via email or strange video conferences....

Anyway, am in a quiet spot before the storm that is my experiment begins next week on VULCAN. I am really looking forward to getting back into the lab to all the nuts and bolts. I'll keep you posted on the progress as the experiment unfolds.

As for this week, I've have a flamenco performance on Wednesday am already scared......!