Night of Physics 2022

Families, physics enthusiasts, and the curious may have just wanted to drop by – but once arrived, they were infected by the enthusiasm of the professors, researchers, students, doctoral candidates, and apprentices alike. Also, many visitors from adjacent neighbourhoods took the Night of Physics 2022 as an opportunity to get to know the campus anew. The programme was packed and everyone was able to individually customise their selection of exciting things to do and explore. That's what made the event so diverse.

Physics is fun!

The most important key to fun is enthusiasm. Far from formulae, the excitement about physics quickly spread from researchers to apprentices to the visitors. Until late into the night, children built over 300 water rockets with great dedication, supervised by apprentices, and then sent them off high into the sky down a ramp built by the University of Bern. In the process, they learned playfully about thrust, aerodynamics and trajectory. And also about the opportunities for apprenticeships at ETH Zurich. “If you pursue a vocational apprenticeship at a university, do you still have to go to vocational school?” asked several interested visitors. Yes, the apprentices at the Department of Physics attend vocational school just like all other apprentices.

Hands-on science

People also marvelled, played, and experimented at the many stands of the research groups set around the park. Under their guidance, laser beams could be precisely deflected and aligned via a real laboratory set-up using mirrors – just like researchers do in their quantum physics laboratories. Children also quickly found their way in via the superconducting external page levitation track built by apprentices, via Polaroid experiments or the thermal imaging camera, which playfully show which methods can be used to discover stars or planets outside our solar system.

Simulating laboratory experience in photonics with games

There are games which, despite their simplicity, are closer to everyday laboratory life than you might think, as experimental physicist Professor Daniela Rupp explained. “That's where the laser beam has to go, you still need a beam splitter and an aperture – an opening for the laser beam. There is always too little space. Also, the beam must not escape unprotected from the table, otherwise your eyes are in danger...” Adults, too, appreciated the experimentation and the opportunity to listen to others. Questions arose intuitively over time, and people were talking about topics they had perhaps never discussed before.
 

Ah, everyday phenomena are also physics?

The interactive wave experiment explained by Sebastian Huber, professor of Theoretical Physics, may have been a little too abstract for the very young. But for children aged six and older, the experiment conveyed fundamental knowledge about wave physics and encouraged everyday observation of nature. In this way, children came into direct contact with science role models and became enthusiastic about research without competition, long before they are confronted with formulae in secondary school. At the same time, adults were also able to experience physics from a new perspective. And thanks to the department's multicultural research community, lively conversations developed in around eight different languages.

Early Alzheimer's detection – Medicine at the Night of Physics 2022?

All but one of the talks were given in German and some of them were recorded (see link below). For example, how can physicists contribute to the early detection of Alzheimer's? The Rector of ETH Zurich and Professor of High Energy Physics, Günther Dissertori, covered a wide range in his easily comprehensible lecture, from basic research at CERN to a start-up company that emerged from ETH Zurich and has developed affordable devices for the early detection of Alzheimer's for everyone. In this lecture, Dissertori demonstrated connections that one might never have thought of before. “Sitting in an ETH lecture hall and listening to lectures taught me a lot of new things – how cool is that!” says a chauffeur, who was in a big lecture hall for the first time, as he usually sits at the wheel of his coach.

A quick meal and off to the underground!

Experiencing new things gives you an appetite! Even in this hot weather, you can't survive solely on the delicious chocolate ice cream made by researchers from the Laboratory for Solid State Physics with liquid nitrogen – an important method for cooling samples and thus making quantum states measurable. But those who didn't want to waste time eating before quickly joining their next lab tour, were confronted with long queues of patiently waiting visitors in front of the delicious street food stalls. Fortunately, the permanent “Food market” cafeteria is equipped to feed many students and researchers at the time every day. There, visitors succeeded in obtaining a tasty portion of gnocchi quickly, often accompanied by a lively exchange with other visitors at one of the large stone tables in the park.

Underground: Spooky effects in the quantum laboratory

In one of the many Night of Physics lab tours, puzzling phenomena of quantum physics are explained in a dark underground laboratory, shielded from environmental influences. For example, particles that are far away from each other can influence one another nevertheless without any apparent connection. Albert Einstein did not believe in such “spooky action at a distance”. But the experiment in the laboratory of Professor Andreas Wallraff's “Quantum Devices” research group disproves Einstein's notion through a thirty-metre-long quantum connection – in the presence of all visitors. Down here, it's all about the very smallest particles, while elsewhere, other visitors look deep into the vast expanse of the universe through a student research telescope set on the highest building on campus. From the smallest to the largest – it's all physics!

Relaxation despite a densely packed programme

Outside on the large lawn, the ETH Zurich Big Band invited us to relax and digest our many impressions. A quick glance at the drinks counter, where the queue there seemed invitingly short at the time, a refreshing drink rounded off the break with a diverse music programme that created a pervasive festival atmosphere in the park. Enjoying a cool evening breeze, breathing deeply, sitting back and looking up at the clear starry sky – taking a break before the lecture given by Nobel Prize winner Didier Queloz, where the naked eye has long since ceased to see anything.

Listening to a Nobel Prize winner at ETH Zurich

“Is there anyone up there?” asked Professor of Astrophysics and Nobel Laureate Didier Queloz in the large lecture hall. For once, sitting on folding chairs like students, and listening the latest about research on planets outside our solar system. Could there be life? In another lecture hall, Sascha Quanz, professor of “Exoplanets and Habitability”, reported the latest in this field of research as part of the wide-ranging series of lectures at the Night of Physics. Recordings of his talk – as well as the lecture on studying at ETH Zurich by Andreas Vaterlaus, Prorector Curriculum Development and Professor in the Laboratory for Solid State Physics, and many more – can be found here.

No time to wind down slowly

Those who had imagined at their arrival only few hours earlier that they would let the evening slowly wind down after the last of the lectures, felt like the children making rockets: There was still so much left to do and explore. Many of the visitors did not want to miss the opportunity to ask the numerous researchers about everything they wanted to know about physics. Still at 11 p.m., lively exchanges were ongoing at the stands, while the facilities service team started pulling the plugs on the experiments and turning of the lights, and night was truly falling on Hönggerberg.

When will the next Night of Physics take place?

Not only visitors, but also researchers, lecturers and the professors, who appreciated the contact with the public and the visitors' interest in their research, asked this question. “Because it is a privilege to be able to tell someone what you are doing” said one of the professors.

The last Night of Physik took place in 2005 as part of ETH Zurich's 150th anniversary celebration. The occasion for this year's Night of Physics was to mark the end of the SNF National Centre of Competence in Research “Quantum Science and Technology” programme. The preparations for the Night of Physics 2022 took nine months. Overall, more than 400 people were involved in the preparation and execution of the Night of Physics 2022: employees of the Department of Physics, supported by building management, security service, event management, ETH Zurich student helpers, and the “svgroup”.

The question “When next?” has not yet been answered. For the time being, everyone involved is happy about the overwhelming positive feedback, including many thank-you letters and emails. For example, a lecturer in mathematics and physics from Buchs, St. Gallen wrote: “Thank you very much for this wonderful Night of Physics. My daughter and I enjoyed it very much. The atmosphere was super good, the motivation of all participants very high. The facts were explained simply, sympathetically and well. We are thrilled.”