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A4 9 The Barrels
No full textWe model Pascal’s barrel through the hydrostatic paradox. A 10 m long, 1 cm wide tube is fixed to a sealed 225 L barrel; adding 0.785 kg of water raises the head to produce 98.1 kPa gauge pressure at the lid. This pressure yields a 25.9 kN upward force on the lid despite the small added mass, illustrating that pressure depends on height and density, not container volume. The paradox is resolved by force balance: the lid exerts an equal 25.9 kN reaction on the fluid, so the barrel base must carry both the total fluid weight of 2.2 kN and this additional downward load. The results align with hydrostatics and validate the model
The shamanic and quantum womb of nature: Wilson Harris’s ‘immunity from evil that is embodied in sexual gymnastics, sexual consumerism and sexual escapism’
No full textUntil Wilson Harris, the Guyanese/British fiction writer and theorist, made his ubiquitous mark within the literary tradition of the Anglophone Caribbean in 1960 with the publication of his first major novel, Palace of the Peacock, few Anglophone Caribbean writers and theorists in the first half of the twentieth century focused on non-normative concepts of gender and sexuality in their fiction. As far as he was concerned, gender could be authentically related to ancient pre-Columbian shamanistic traditions that possessed an inherent quantum value. Harris developed this perception into a concept that he termed the shamanic womb of nature (1996, p. 227).
This paper begins with Harris’s shamanic womb of nature as derived from the pre-Columbian myth of Omeoteotl, an androgynous deity. Next, I will discuss the inherent nature of quantum immediacy found in the shamanic womb of nature. Moreover, the implicit yet nuanced correspondences that Harris’s gender fluidity shares with queer theory and transgender studies will be introduced. There will also be an examination of critical scholarly works that discuss Harris’s subversion of the conventional male/female binary. Finally, I will show that Harris, in his literary experimentation of language in Carnival, plots a way to reinsert the notion of gender fluidity found in the shamanic womb of nature into the present-day politics of cisheteronormativity
To what extent can Artificial Intelligence apply Physics to solve global problems?
No full textGenerative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is an emerging technology that creates relevant text, images and other content from prompts. Large Language models (LLMs) are the most widely used of these GenAI forms. This technology already has applications in business and education.
This paper tests GenAI’s ability to apply physics to global problems and arrive at viable solutions. When an idea is created by a human, it is merely a culmination of that person’s experiences and prior knowledge, ordered into a new concept. This research proposes that the process should be able to be replicated by a machine learning algorithm and, due to its vast database, a far more informed and coherent idea should be the result. This research tested how well AI could tackle some global challenges and compared the results to how well these same challenges could be addressed by physicists.
The data collection process was to have a dynamic conversation with each of the participants and work with them to create a number of ideas and solutions that apply physics to a selection of global issues. This process was repeated with both Bing AI and ChatGPT-4, where they were prompted to return ideas to the same issues. Each of the ideas were then coded to a marking scheme adapted from the ‘OECD DAC criteria for development evaluation’.
While Bing AI did not prove itself to be capable of unique idea creation, ChatGPT-4 returned valuable data. ChatGPT-4 excelled at providing efficient, coherent and sustainable results whilst it performed significantly worse than humans in versatility and profitability.
The findings show that at the present time, AI cannot work as an idea generation tool on its own due to lacking in accuracy and versatility. It is best applied in tandem with humans where it can be used to generate a series of ideas to a problem and physicists refine the results. 
What Quantity of Fish do I need to eat to have enough Mercury for a Thermometer?
No full textThe presence of elevated mercury levels in ecosystems and farmed fish has been of great concern since the 1970’s, due to the severe neurotoxin effects. This paper will investigate how mercury works its way up food chains into the fish we consume, why mercury levels differ between regions of water and species, and lastly how many fish on average would give us enough mercury for a thermometer
When Science Collides with Gameplay: Reinhardt’s Charging Force
No full textIn the game Overwatch, Reinhardt is a trusty tank who has a charge ability enabling him to use thrusters to hurtle towards his enemies. This paper estimates his mass using another character’s known weight, as well as comparing the mass of his armour against medieval armour. Using this the force, momentum and kinetic energy can be calculated of his charge
How Deadly is a Can of Coke?
No full textMany articles and posts online claim that “you lose 12 minutes of your life every time you drink a Coke”. This paper will see whether this statistic is as scary as it sounds by calculating how much life a person who drinks Coke daily could lose and how accurate this claim is based on current research
‘The Pompidou Of Iguaçu’: Cultural Impact And Reconfiguration Of The Art Systems In South America
No full textExploring the history of Centre Pompidou and its global influence within 21stcentury art systems, this article analyses its museological model and expansion strategy, focusing on plans to establish a Brazilian outpost in Foz do Iguaçu, located in the triple border area between Argentina and Paraguay. Drawing on recent literature and media coverage, the study addresses soft power relations and the so-called Bilbao Effect as key concepts in this operation. It highlights similarities with the global rise of private art museums and examines the hybrid public-private nature of the enterprise in Brazil. The article compares this initiative to other Centre Pompidou expansions in Spain, China, and the United States, discussing concerns raised by academics in these regions regarding the display of major private collections and public art policies in contemporary South America. Finally, the cultural impacts of this expansion are explored, focusing on the potential homogenisation and exoticisation of local cultures, framed as part of a re-colonial process that commodifies cultural differences.
Keywords: Centre Pompidou expansion, global art systems, Foz do Iguaçu art museum, museological models, cultural impact
P1 1 Could the Sun Survive without Quantum Mechanics?
No full textThis paper explores the conditions required for proton-proton fusion to occur in the Sun without
the aid of quantum mechanics. It is found that the Sun in its current form could not sustain fusion
without quantum tunnelling, and for it to do so, it would need to be at a minimum temperature
of approximately T = 2.8 × 109 K, a temperature only seen in the most violent cosmic events such
as supernovae and neutron star mergers
P1 6 We Will Rock You (But Not That Much): Estimating the Seismic Energy of a Rock Concert Crowd
No full textThis paper estimates the number of people required to generate, through rhythmic stomping, the same amount of energy as a small earthquake. Using Queen’s iconic ’We Will Rock You’ as a model, we approximate the kinetic energy released per stomp and compare it with the seismic energy of a magnitude 3.0 earthquake. We find that 295 million people would need to stomp in unison for the duration of the song to simulate a minor earthquake
A5 2 Survivability of Andromeda Evolving into a Blazar
No full textWe consider the case that Andromeda evolves into a blazar, an active galaxy with a powerful jet pointing in the direction of the observer. We find that this scenario would pose little threat to life as we know it at the current distance of Andromeda when using lower bounds to calculate the received flux (5.71 x 10-5 erg s-1 cm-2) and fluence (14.8 erg cm-2) of the jet. In the case of upper bounds, there is also little threat unless a flare were to last approximately ten days