Turning physics up to 11

Rock guitars, superstrings, 11 dimensions and the world’s largest and highest energy particle accelerator are the lead instruments for the Institute of Physics’ latest drive to get kids interested in science.

Mark Lewney - or Dr Rock to his friends

“Rock in 11 dimensions: where physics and guitars collide” is their latest talk for school students throughout the UK, building on everyday physics to explain groundbreaking research.

The 2008 Schools and College Lecture, aimed at 14-16 year old students, will reveal the secrets behind the sounds of rock guitars and how string vibrations might answer the big questions about the Big Bang.

Acoustics physicist Dr Mark Lewney, this year’s presenter said: “If you understand string vibrations you can appreciate music with both your head and your heart. And understanding the fundamentals of the universe as well is a massive bonus!”

As well as demonstrating the physics of rock guitar and showing how the vibrations of guitar strings form the basis of String Theory, Mark – who won the first FameLab competition at the Cheltenham Science Festival in 2005 - will introduce students to the biggest experiment ever built – the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.

While CERN’s experiments are expected to bring major technological advances in superconductivity and computation, Mark says they are also important for the role they will play in exploring the fabric of the universe and understanding the very deepest questions of our existence and the universe’s beginnings, such as where its mass came from and where most of it mysteriously disappeared to.