Incredible Chemistry: A Day in the Life (of Chemistry)

If I had a pound for every time some said ‘I hated chemistry at school’, I’d be a very rich man! Chemistry teachers have the unenviable task of trying to get students to ‘see the unseeable’, which evidently doesn’t come naturally to most of the population. This talk will attempt to demystify some aspects of the subject, helping the audience to appreciate the value of chemistry in their everyday lives, and hopefully assisting them in understanding some of the chemical principles that govern the world around us.

Nanoparticles are everywhere and always have been – they fall off your fork at dinner time, they are in the air we breathe and even in the water we drink. Nanoparticles are not the same as bigger particles. As the size of the particles gets smaller and smaller the chemistry changes and we enter the world of nano, where rules are made to be broken. The exploitation of nanoparticles occurs in everyday items and the demand is ever increasing. Find out how scientists are tackling these challenges while you keep calm and count particles!

Where is the coldest point in Southampton? Inside Max's lab, where he uses lasers to cool atoms down to a few millionth's of a degree above absolute zero. At this temperature, the atoms no longer act like the little balls we learn about at school but take on wibbly-wobbly, wave-like properties; this is the realm of quantum mechanics. Join Max as he explains how he uses lasers to such chilling effect, and what makes these ultra-cool atoms so incredibly useful and, well, cool.