jIAPS Creative Competition 2021
First Place: Alexia Beale
“For my project, I researched the Self-Stratification of Bimodal Linear and Star Polymers During the Drying of Thin Films. The sea creatures represent types of polymer and colloidal particles. The top part of the drawing shows the transition between chains of linear polymers to spherical colloidal particles. The next part shows that mixtures of large and small linear polymers (by molecular weight – Mw) stratify with the larger polymer enriched at the surface; whilst with large and small colloidal particles, the smaller particle is enriched at the surface. Our research aims to investigate whether star polymers behave similarly to linear polymers or colloidal particles”.
Second Place: Nassos Nikolaou – “When I grow up”
Third Place: Rashmi Sarwal – “Galaxies Collision”
jIAPS Creative Competition 2020
First Place: Hannah – “The Wall”
Second Place: Athy – “Skyward Search”
Centuries spent skywards gazing,
Long since our ancestral hands caked with mud
gave way to fingertips glued to keyboards.
The dull glow of laptop fluorescence
could never outshine the burning bulbs up, up above.
From dawn to dusk,
When the lure of our screens loses appeal
where else but in the sky do our haggard eyes find solace?
Deep into the vastness of space,
lies this ancient thrum.
If listened to long enough,
It syncs with our hearts’ rhythm.
Calling us home – to ourselves.
For the insatiable human heart is most comforted,
When in perpetual curiosity of the unknown.
Forever asking and answering questions
about phenomena that long precede us.
And will long outlast us.
It was never about the answer,
it is the thrill of the search that we seek.
Then, dear friends,
May we forever stay searching.
Third Place: Sascha – “Hairy Ball Theorem”
The drawing depicts the “Hairy Ball Theorem”, which says that a smooth vector field on a ball is always zero at some point. This has various physical implications, for example you can never comb a hedgehog without having some spikes standing upright and there is always a place on Earth with exactly zero wind speed.
Highly Commended Work: Stefania
How many times people asked a physicist what exactly a physicist does. And how many times we were not able to communicate the whole Universe we have inside?
Every time we look at something we feel the strongest attraction towards what we are observing: passion, entertainment, wonder.
However, being a scientist is something extremely challenging too. We have to face very difficult moments, in which everything is questioned, including who we really are and what we really want to.
I tried to enclose all of those complex feelings in one picture.
Our lives are a mixture of books and experiences: a pendulum oscillating between fire and water.
Highly Commended Work: Supriya – “Mandala Art”
I am Supriya Dhakal. I am an undergraduate student of physics from Nepal. I have been trying my hands on Mandala artwork during this lockdown period as a means for combating my stress and anxiety. The literal meaning of Mandala is circle and it is considered to be spiritual in Hinduism and Buddhism. The first diagram is simply a colourless mandala pattern. The second picture is of Space Mandala art and the third one represents Yin-Yang mandala art. The Yin-Yang symbolises the balance of life that is the two complementary or opposing forces that make up every aspects of life.