A home-built levitated train and a modern dance troupe’s version of superconductivity were among the treats offered to the public as part of the Festival of Physics held October 20 and 21 at Columbus’s Center of Science and Industry (COSI). The festival was the joint project of Ohio State’s ICAM group, led by Nandini Trivedi, and the COSI science faculty led by Steven Whitt, COSI’s Director of Experience Programs Teaching and Learning. Videos taken at the event are available at www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~trivedi/ICAM

An estimated 1300 people attended over the two days (teachers got in free). They visited carts (science à la cart) set up throughout the museum with exhibits and hands-on activities addressing such questions as “why is water wet and steel tough?” and focusing on superconductivity, magnetism, cold atoms, and superfluids. The demos from Harold Whitt’s lab at OSU and from COSI were wonderful in engaging audiences of all ages. The floating Thomas-the-tank built by graduate student Julian Hetel was a big draw.

Visitors were also able to attend lectures in COSI’s Galaxy Theater by faculty from the Ohio State Physics Department. The scheduled presentations were “The Revolutionary BCS Theory of Superconductivity” (Tom Lemberger); “Ultra Cold Atoms” (Mohit Randeria); “Phase Transitions in Magnets” (Chris Hammel); “High-Temperature Superconductivity” (Nandini Trivedi), and “The Science of Ice Cream,” in while Gönül Kaletunç demonstrated how ice cream’s complex properties emerge from its simple ingredients.

Each day closed with two dances. The first, choreographed by Rachel Boggia, dance faculty at Dickinson College, and danced by eight of her students, was a stylized rendition of superconductivity. It brought out the chaotic behavior of electrons at high temperatures, followed by pairing as the temperature was lowered and then finally the entire troupe performed coordinated movements to show coherence of all the pairs. After this the public was called upon to become an electron and join in the “Cooper pairs square dance” in which everyone could participate. Bandannas, both blue and red, indicating spin up and down electrons, were distributed to the public. Music for the square dance was provided by the DJ, Dorian Hamm. Once again the chaotic dance led to pairing between red and blue bandanna people, followed by formation of quartets, octets and then ever increasing groups of people dancing coherently until the entire assembly of over 200 people formed a large circle in which everyone was dancing together. Then something unexpected happened. The large space in the center of the circle was an ideal stage and some members of the audience went to the center for a bit of break dancing. These were the vortices!! Everyone marveled at the dance orchestrated by nature in a superconductor.

By Karie Friedman, ICAMNews, October 2007

Photos by Harold Whitt