Meet the scientists!

Unfortunately I can’t upload photos here, but I’ve uploaded a selection of photos from work and play time here – http://gallery.me.com/d.whittaker#100200

 

I work at neutron and x-ray sources around the world. By firing a beam of neutrons (or x-rays) at a material and detecting how they scatter, we can work out where the atoms inside that material are and how they’re jiggling about basically using Bragg’s Law of diffraction.

From that you can work out things like how heat and sound travel through the material. Glasses are solids that look liquid (disordered) and are much harder to deal with than crystals – where atoms all line up in perfect order. I look at glasses under high pressures  – about 20 GPa, It’s like putting all the weight of 40 busses onto your finger.

If you go down towards the centre of the earth, you start to get very high temperatures and pressures. By studying what happens to Silica glass (which is the main ingredient of sand) and other similar glasses in the lab we can help figure out what’s hapenning under our feet (e.g. earthquakes). I also look at how atoms jiggle about inside glasses by using neutron spectroscopy.

I work both with the University of Bath and the Science and Technology Facilities council, who run the ISIS spallation neutron source. So my work is mostly split between Bath and Oxford day-to-day with frequent trips to Grenoble in France (the ILL neutron source there is one the UK contributes some cash towards). The result is that I know a lot about how ISIS works and have two supervisors – like having a mum and a dad who don’t always agree!

On a personal note, I white water kayak in the little spare time I have and have started enjoying Salsa – though I’m not very good at it yet! I’m a keen swimmer (especially when I fall out of the kayak – which has yet to happen on a proper river, thank God!). I love meeting new people and travelling around, I make sure I take advantage of all the travelling I get to do with work! I’m also a sucker for a “high concept” US drama – I love 24 and lost. 

Neutrons take a lot of effort and cost a lot of money to produce (you need either a nuclear reactor or what we call a spallation source). So there are only a few in the world – the UK has one in Didcot – www.isis.rl.ac.uk, France has a couple (one in Grenoble that I visit a lot – www.ill.fr). These sources have something in the middle producing neutrons and lots of instruments (usually 30 or so) around it, each “instrument” is like it’s own lab and has 3 or 4 people working on it and is tuned for different types of experiments. 

We typically do 6  big experiments or so a year, each takes 1 or 2 weeks we work very hard (sometimes up at 4am). It’s tough work, but it means I get to work in Chicago, the south of France and lots of places around the UK and we take time off when we’re there.

A day might start at midday and finish at 3pm when I’m on an experiment. Or it could start at 5am and finish at 11pm. Every day is different. A lot of my time is spent making samples (it’s not too disimilar to glass blowing – you heat up powders till they’re at 1600 degrees, then dunk them in liquid nitrogen instead of water).

We also have to put together some big pressure rigs etc. so it’s hands on. I do a little high-level computer programming (high level meaning it’s easier than propper computer programming!) to help analyse data and operate the machines we work at.

I spend about 3 months a year in a hotel room somewhere (mostly Oxford or Grenoble, France). Which I enjoy – no cooking, no cleaning! While some weeks are standard office weeks – looking at data, writing talks and writing up results. 

Rutherford Appleton Laboratory has the world’s most powerful spallation neutron source (http://www.isis.stfc.ac.uk/), the world’s most powerful laser  (http://www.clf.rl.ac.uk/), projects which help CERN (http://public.web.cern.ch/public/) and testing facilities for satellites (http://www.esa.int/esaCP/index.html).

The science that they do at the lab is fantastic and hugely varied. Some of the top world scientists work there regularly. The facilities are pretty impressive too – it’s real science and really big science. Often people don’t get to see this sort of science on this sort of scale and that’s a shame. Everyone who visits enjoys it. 

They’re willing to run tours for schools for free. However, transportation has to be arranged by the school and this costs money. I would try to arrange with our local schools (or yours if they’re interested!) for some tours around the biggest and best facilities at the laboratory and pay for that