Suits to Robes: A study of Free Jazz Fashion

This presentation examines the presence and significance of African-derived clothing styles among Jazz musicians in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The study primarily focuses on musicians associated with progressive strains of the musical form, such as Free Jazz. The publically expressed beliefs and cultural involvement of some musicians who performed in avant-garde styles during this politically and artistically tumultuous period indicate their support and promotion of the general mindset of African-American Cultural Nationalism with their choice of clothing. Using Wenger’s theory of Communities of Practice, a study of the discography of many free jazz artists shows how these musicians, working in a non-verbal form of expression, made a political statement through their choice of clothing in a show of solidarity with the African-American Cultural Nationalist movement

Exploring the experiences of undergraduate physics students taking a 'Teaching Physics in School' module and the effects on their intentions to become a secondary physics teacher

This article describes an undergraduate physics module at a university in England that places year 3 student physicists in secondary school classrooms for a semester. This is done as a way of introducing them to the occupation of secondary physics teaching using a realistic job preview approach. The module helps the undergraduate students develop their communication and professional skills and supports the physics learning of pupils in the schools where they are placed. The perceptions of the participating students toward secondary school physics teaching are then investigated. Two themes emerged from this research: The difficulty of explaining physics concepts to children and the need to make school physics enjoyable.Comment: 10 pages, conference pape

Development of a SQUID magnetometry system for cryogenic neutron electric dipole moment experiment

A measurement of the neutron electric dipole moment (nEDM) could hold the key to understanding why the visible universe is the way it is: why matter should predominate over antimatter. As a charge-parity violating (CPV) quantity, an nEDM could provide an insight into new mechanisms that address this baryon asymmetry. The motivation for an improved sensitivity to an nEDM is to find it to be non-zero at a level consistent with certain beyond the Standard Model theories that predict new sources of CPV, or to establish a new limit that constrains them. CryoEDM is an experiment that sought to better the current limit of $|d_n| < 2.9 \times 10^{-26}\,e\,$cm by an order of magnitude. It is designed to measure the nEDM via the Ramsey Method of Separated Oscillatory Fields, in which it is critical that the magnetic field remains stable throughout. A way of accurately tracking the magnetic fields, moreover at a temperature $\sim 0.5\,$K, is crucial for CryoEDM, and for future cryogenic projects. This thesis presents work focussing on the development of a 12-SQUID magnetometry system for CryoEDM, that enables the magnetic field to be monitored to a precision of $0.1\,$pT. A major component of its infrastructure is the superconducting capillary shields, which screen the input lines of the SQUIDs from the pick up of spurious magnetic fields that will perturb a SQUID's measurement. These are shown to have a transverse shielding factor of $> 1 \times 10^{7}$, which is a few orders of magnitude greater than the calculated requirement. Efforts to characterise the shielding of the SQUID chips themselves are also discussed. The use of Cryoperm for shields reveals a tension between improved SQUID noise and worse neutron statistics. Investigations show that without it, SQUIDs have an elevated noise when cooled in a substantial magnetic field; with it, magnetostatic simulations suggest that it is detrimental to the polarisation of neutrons in transport. The findings suggest that with proper consideration, it is possible to reach a compromise between the two behaviours. Computational work to develop a simulation of SQUID data is detailed, which is based on the Laplace equation for the magnetic scalar potential. These data are ultimately used in the development of a linear regression technique to determine the volume-averaged magnetic field in the neutron cells. This proves highly effective in determining the fields within the $0.1\,$pT requirement under certain conditions

Troublesome learning journey

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