Cafe Scientifique presents – Relatively Speaking

Mr Emsley, Physics Teacher, commenced the new series of Cafe Scientifique lectures by delivering a gripping lecture outlining the essential ideas behind Relativity. Using interactive media and pupil participation, the wonders of Einstein’s mind were explored.

Pupils were intrigued when it was discovered that some other pupils in the Lecture theatre had increased in age more, or less, than others at the same event, in the space of an hour. Pupils also found that GPS receivers in mobile phones must calculate to take relativistic effects in to account. Maths fans were shown the meaning of the ‘Lorentz Factor’ (a quantity expressing how much the measurements of time, length, and other physical properties change for an object while that object is moving) and why we cannot exceed the speed of light.

This exciting lecture was followed up by an online Q&A session.