Project launches in Physics

Christmas brought the Physics Department an exciting present with the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). With initial planning starting in 1996, this has been a long time coming. The JWST is now one million miles from the Earth and is preparing to look back in time to see the very earliest galaxies, and hopefully answer some of the big questions in Astrophysics.  

Our Upper Sixth have completed the Option topic of their A level course: half have studied Astrophysics and half looked at some of ground-breaking results of the 20th Century. These included Albert Einstein’s realisation that not only will looking at an event from a distance mean that you are looking back in time, but that relative motion will mean that nobody will even agree on when an event took place, or how long it lasted. On the largest and smallest scales, reality becomes very strange!  

All the physicists are enjoying the relaxing of the social distancing rules, which is allowing for more practical work to take place. Physics is an experimental science, and we all want to explore how our universe works. 

Richard Brown, Head of Physics