The Light of Knowledge
.jpg "Kirill Boldyrev, senior researcher at the Fourier Transform Spectroscopy Laboratory of the RAS Institute of Spectroscopy")
On May 20, the ‘Day of Light’ was held for the first time at the HSE University building on Basmannaya Ulitsa. The event was organised and conducted by students of the Faculty of Physics, who told junior students and schoolchildren about the latest scientific achievements.
Daria Bykova, Master’s student of the Faculty of Physics, organiser
The International Day of Light is celebrated annually on May 16. It is dedicated to the role of light in life, science, art, culture and other spheres. The Institute of Spectroscopy of the Russian Academy of Sciences published the news about this event on its website. So, we had the idea to hold a Day of Light event for students and applicants of the Faculty of Physics. The academic curators of the faculty supported and developed the idea. We decided to tell junior students and schoolchildren about the world of science in simple language. Senior students got an opportunity to make presentations of their research papers.
After registering and meeting near the hall of HSE University building on Basmannaya Ulitsa, the event participants (including students, applicants and guests of the faculty), attended lectures and presentations of interesting scientific reports.
Igor Baliukin, Associate Professor at the Joint Department of Space Physics with the Space Research Institute (RAS), spoke about the heliosphere model, the propagation of light in the galaxy, the mission of the two Voyager spacecraft, and prospects and new hypotheses.
Kirill Boldyrev, senior researcher at the Fourier Transform Spectroscopy Laboratory of the Institute of Spectroscopy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, impressed students and guests with experiments with light, multicoloured diamonds and lenses, ultraviolet radiation and low temperatures, and demonstrated the wave theory of light on the ceiling of the lecture hall.
Konstantin Eltsov, Professor at the Joint Department of Quantum Technologies with Prokhorov General Physics Institute (RAS), recalled that science is rapidly moving forward and that things that recently seemed unreal have already become part of our everyday life. New discoveries in the field of quantum technologies are yet to come, including the creation of a quantum computer.
Olga Tarabaeva, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology, also took part in the event. She demonstrated a chemical experiment on obtaining fluorescein and its disodium salt of uranin A compounds, which has pronounced fluorescence, logically linking the sciences of physics and chemistry.
In the second part of the programme, master's and bachelor's students presented their reports on such topics as light, quantum technologies, and more.
Polina Vinetskaya, master’s student of the Joint Department of Quantum Technologies with Prokhorov General Physics Institute (RAS), spoke about classical cryptography, ciphers, spies and quantum money. Arina Safonova, fourth-year bachelor’s student, connected physics and biology in her study of optical methods of DNA sequencing. Guests of the event learned about the new, eternal and fleeting from a report by first-year master’s student Daria Bykova, who studies laser cooling of atoms and atomic clocks.
Artem Nikonov, 4th-year bachelor’s student of the Faculty of Physics, organiser
We invited third- and fourth-year students who wished to share their projects to take part in poster sessions aimed at illustrating the various applications of light in science. It was their first experience and an opportunity to present the results of their research almost at a professional level in a conference format.
The day ended with a tour of the laboratory workshops of the Faculty of Physics conducted by junior students. Guests had an opportunity to see where undergraduates experimentally study physical phenomena from various branches of physics, from mechanics to optics.
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