1 August 2017 18:21

Lancaster Professor Roger Jones and other Lancaster physicists have appeared at the Physics Pavilion at the Womad Festival 2017.

This is the second time the Pavilion has been staged at Womad with the help of Lancaster University, CERN, the Institute of Physics and the Science and Technology Facilities Council.

This year the Pavilion joined up with Houston with a live link to NASA’s Johnson Space Centre giving festival goers the chance to experience astronaut training.

Professor Jones from Lancaster University’s Department of Physics curated a series of talks at the festival.

He said once again the event had been a great success both for the speakers and for festival-goers.

“WOMAD attracts a wide range of ages, all of whom are curious, but not necessarily initially about science. It was good to be able to work alongside very able technicians, programmers and artists, and to bring the new workshop space, which was a particular favourite for younger potential scientists.”

There was also a brand new interactive hub ‘The Lab’, with interactive experiments and workshops like The Superconducting Train, Building your own Cloud Chamber and Making a Sunset in a Tube.

There was also a workshop on how to play the Theremin, along with exploring physics through the world of Minecraft, and the chance to create a Particle Collision.  Talks and discussions covered everything from the science of rock guitar to space junk and festival fog.

Comedian, writer and science lover Robin Ince took a break from his UK arena tour to visit the festival to discuss art, creativity and all things scientific in his talk “The Rorschach Test of Reality”.

Professor John Huth’s talk “Where Am I? : The Science of Navigation” explored the art of natural way-finding and primitive navigation whilst ‘Space Junk’ explored the secret world of space debris orbiting the Earth.