ROPETACKLE has its detractors (including me when it comes to its impact on boat-launching), but I feel what goes on inside deserves praise.
I refer specifically to two of the Art of Science lectures that I was lucky enough to attend during the Adur Festival.
The poster said "Symmetries, Scales, and the Origin of Everything", and I was intrigued to see how a top Sussex University parti
cle physics professor could get his message across to 100 people "off the street" – admittedly a Shoreham street, but, even so, the subject is pretty challenging.
Well, he did it admirably.
The music and visuals helped to hold the attention of those who never even took O-level science.
But by the end of the evening, I feel we had a fair grasp of the importance of symmetry, and even more importantly, the intriguing little bits of asymmetry, in the physical world.
Professor Harris certainly brought to life the current Neutron EDM (Electric Dipole Moment) experiment that is being conducted in Europe.
It doesn't grab the headlines like the Large Hadron Collider does, but its results have already been far reaching, and when its new refinements are implemented in a couple of years, its micro microscopic precision is expected to have a spectacular impact on our understanding of matter.
Professor Hartley's lecture was equally gripping but very different.
How many of us knew that grasses, when extensively grazed by voles, fight back by producing a form of sand in their leaves, which in turn ruins the voles' teeth so much so that they get skinny and stop breeding.
Their numbers fall a hundred-fold before the grasses revert to normal and the cycle starts all over again. But it wasn't all voles.
We were also treated to koala bears and the assembled children from Boundstone school actually got the audience singing out loud the joys of eucalyptus.
I'm so sorry I missed the other lectures.
Let's hope they are repeated again next year.
Mike Wooldridge
Riverbank
Shoreham BeachNOTE: All letters must include a name and address which can be withheld by request.
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