Hello and welcome to the physics world weekly
podcast.
I'm Hamish Johnston,
Coming up in this episode, I'm in conversation
with Dale Keeping, who is helium recovery manager
at the Uk's Isis,
Neutron and
Source.
He explains how Helium is used at the
facility,
where the gas comes from.
And how he and his colleagues manage this
non renewable resource.
Dale also chats about an outreach initiative. That
involves collecting used party balloons so that the
helium they contain can be reused at Isis.
Blood first, physics world's mat team
Is in
conversation with David Jenkins.
Who has written a series of textbooks
that take a different approach to teaching nuclear
physics.
Focusing first on how the data lead to
physical models,
rather than beginning with models and theories.
Hello, and I'm delighted to be joined by
David Jenkins, a nuclear physicist at University of
York. Welcome to the podcast, David. Thank you.
I'm happy to be you. Now remember, we
let years ago at an Institute of Physics
awards dinner, and I remember you wrote a
feature for us about nuclear physics and its
role on life on Earth.
But since then you've written a couple of
ebooks for Io about nuclear physics, and it's
given you some insights into how we should
teach. The subject
to students.
But before we come to that, I thought
we'd just start with some the basics.
So what what are the are the big
questions in nuclear physics right now for people
who haven't been keeping an eye on things?
Well, III think there's many. I mean, there's
lots of very technical.
Issues. But I think the issues are are
most interesting,
to to the wider public. Or about the
origin of the chemical elements
And
nuclear physics is is really
underpins
what elements are produced and the import abundant
is in our in our universe, and that's
got very exciting
in the last few years because,
from the discovery of gravitational waves, and then
this light being emitted when when these objects
are colliding id, it's rein,
the whole field of nuclear physics is a
huge number of questions now about.
The origin of the elements.
And that that kinda of tall with your
own particular research interests that I think. Is
that right in saying that? Yeah. So I've
I've I've worked a lot on, they say
everything that's called nuclear astro physics that relates
to the origin of the elements, particularly at
the moment. I've been working on
fusion
in massive stars, what what what what's going
on in in stars that are 8 to
20 times more massive than our son.
But I'm also equally interested in just the
pure aspects of nuclear structure
and the properties of the atomic nucleus.
So I mean, looking back to my undergraduate
days, I actually did a degree in chemical
physics. I don't think there was much nuclear
physics on the syllabus, but what typically do
you physics students that undergraduate level learn about
nuclear physics. How much
is there on the curriculum?
There can be quite quite a lot. I
mean, it
in our university
here at York.
There's quite there's quite a bit on on
the curriculum in there even for the... For
the core program, and the part of the
physics. I you can take options and study,
even in into your third or 4 year
of your degree. But at least in the,
second year of the degree, there's a there's
a lot of,
sang to deal with nuclear physics
probably as much as we discuss particle called
Physics exceptionally. Yeah but that might be because
we've got a lot of near nuclear physicists
year.
And and lots not so many particles ones.
So, I thought we've turned to the new
books that you've been writing. You wanna say
a little bit about them. Yes. So this
is working with Io publishing
for their physics books series.
We proposed a a series of books on
nuclear structure
and nuclear spectroscopy,
and And
that's been a very, very interesting
evolution actually because of also because of events
because we we signed up to
I'm gonna deliver some of these books just
before the Covid
struck. And then when the Covid arrived,
it we we suddenly had huge amounts of
time to play with to and actually, in
a way it was very therapeutic
because we're able to spend all this time
thinking about writing,
and thinking about how to approach writing the
books.
And, of course,
the Covid also drew it into another perspective
because libraries were closed, You know, you couldn't
go and get a physical book.
You you weren't sure perhaps of that time.
You you'd go to a library ever again.
And so he really opened up the possibilities
of what. Could be done with electronic,
major and electronic rocks for. Because of course
these are, ebooks published fines to your physics,
publishing
so, I mean, who who who would they
be aimed at? Are they mostly aimed at
undergraduate or post grad students?
Yeah. I think they would probably be aimed
at. To the the final year undergraduate students,
but mostly,
postgraduate students doing ph d or or masters
in in in nuclear physics.
So that's the sort of target audience
that we have
And and you... You told me you've kind
of taken a different approach to other nuclear
physics textbook. I mean, what's?
What approach have you taken and how how
does it differ? Would you say? Yeah. I
think this is quite interesting because as I
said, we we spent quite a bit of
time thinking about how to approach. This. So
I I work with my my main collaborator
on these books. Is called John Wood, and
he's a retired professor at Georgia
tech in in the Us and he has,
you know, an enormous number of years of
experience of teaching, and I I've talked for
a lot of years now,
And, of course, you you start getting interested
in
in Pe.
How how to teach
how how to convey
ideas to students,
how how to challenge them how to make
them involved and interested
in in learning and
And as I say, that that that led
us into thinking about how to use books
and so on. So I mean, historically, if
you go back and look at nuclear physics
text books.
They tend to start with models,
and they often tend to start in a
rather kind of
should 1 say biblical kind of way like
a biblical authority, you know, here was the
the model of of the shell model
which is historical model going back to the
the, sort of early 19 fifties.
And
there's nothing wrong with these models, but
it it it's kind of
so us of very old fashioned way of
of of teaching the subject,
and that it can be dry
and boring.
And and sometimes these models
have become less useful as people have got
more data and looked at these models. They
found that there's... Problems with these models, and
that the the the data doesn't really fit
the models.
And then sometimes people have come along and
added a few more parameters of models and
know because you know from your your involvement
science, you can keep adding parameters to models
and fit anything, but then it cease to
be,
physics.
So we're trying to turn the whole thing
around and start with data
in our approach rather than,
with models
So when you say data, what you mean
data that people have got from physics experiments?
And what do you present real data or
you sort of look at the kind of
typical data that 1 would get?
Yes. So so there's there's an enormous,
comp,
and databases of data.
Out there nuclear data. So that's all sorts
of properties of nuclei light. Let's take, for
example, their gross properties. So let the the
massive nuclei.
Their radius.
These are gross properties that people have measured.
We also have excited states of nuclei.
The nucleus is a quantum system, so it
has quantized the excited states of specific,
energy. There are also
transitions between
nuclear excited states.
And because of the energy regime that it's
in, those transitions media by gamma rays, which
are very high energy,
form of
electromagnetic
radiation light.
So we have all of those databases there
and because, of course,
the nucleus is exploited in various ways like,
for nuclear energy
and for medicine and things like that, it's
very important that people have compiled all this
data over the years So there's a huge
amount of data there,
that that can be touched and then used
more more around
learning from.
So do you think that makes the subject
more accessible it becomes more real and and
less dry as you say because people can
see
real date and kind of
kind of intrigued by it and what that
might tell us. Yes. I think that's what
we tried to do. We tried to say,
let's look at the data.
And let's see if simple patterns emerge from
the data and let's not start with traditional
models like this shell model, which has the
a concept that there are certain magic numbers
of protons and neutrons
for which the system
has closed shells. It's called a bit like
closed shells in a in an atom. So
in an atom, you have the,
you're you have chemical
chemistry background. So we have these things noble
gases that have no chemistry
because they have closed shells of electrons, and
we have certain nuclei that have closed shells
approach tolls and neutrons and they're quite hard
to excite. That's the the the classic
picture of them.
But rather site we're model, 1 can start
looking at all this abundance of data and
actually see naturally how
these features emerge from looking the data.
And then we looked at various aspects of
nuclei. So and nucleus has typically,
a hundred or maybe 200 protons and neutrons
making it up. And the nucleus is fascinating
because many aspects of it are dictated by
the behavior of just 1 of those protons
and neutrons.
And many of the other aspects are dictated
by those hundreds of particles all acting together,
so called collected,
behavior in nuclei, what 1
way that scene is, the the nucleus can
rotate and you can see patterns of rotational
states in nuclei. As you see patterns of
rotational states in molecules in in in chemistry,
That's that's the analogy. And 1 can look
at all this data and see these simple
patterns emerging.
And then we we kind of have chapters
which ask questions, you know, how does the
model...
How does the data support models like rotation?
So rather than starting with a a biblical
authority of a model, we'll let the
the the the data speak. If you like.
And did you
test this with people? Or have you had
any feedback whether that approach is successful and
is what people feel is the right way
to learn. We've had some very nice feedback
from from students and from people around the
world. I mean, it's been interesting. I've had
messages from many different countries, South Africa,
Columbia,
it's clear that people are are using these
books all over the world, which is very
pleasing.
And
I think it's also clear that they've engaged
well with the material
and understood it,
Of course, they've often spotted mistakes, but that's
slide that they then say, why does they
say 82 when it should be 28?
Somebody's type something the wrong way around. But
they've
they've engaged with it, and and they they've
they've found that approach to be useful. I
think that's the feedback, which we're getting.
And I think be the other aspect of
it is that the way that we present
the thing
is very close to research because
we we have exercises in the book. And
we say, well, we looked at this example
in this particular region of the nuclear chart.
This particular
combination of protons and neutrons. Why not have
a look at this region of the nuclear
chart and see what there, go and retrieve
the data and whatever. So we... We're setting
these open ended exercises is that
in a sense, actually generate research questions.
You know, it could turn into AAA 30
year research program to
get the data to to answer that. But
I think
Again, for my experience of teaching, I think
it's it's very useful to show students
where the textbook ends where where research starts,
and I think it's often very difficult for
early career researchers to
make that transition or make that jump ask
those questions.
So we're trying just
to find a way to sort of facilitate
that the half ounce.
So if I was a student, you know,
starting off my Phd into nuclear physics, we
know what would be the The big questions
that, you know, you'd encourage me to go
into what would you go into if you
were spying out again, David.
If I was starting out again, I I
wonder if I would do n nucleus physics
6, I do... I might do something different,
but I think
just because I've done it for so many
years, like, you gotta start thinking well, You
know, if I was start they go, I'd
love to know about some other things not
that I find what I'm doing boring.
Because there were so many open questions in
the field and there are so many
important
applications to other fields like fundamental physics and
astro physics and the course all the societal
applications to energy and Medicine to to to
name but a few
But I think I would encourage young people
starting it off in that in the field,
and I'm biased here, but because the the
clue what we've been discussing. But, you know,
I I would
I would encourage them to to challenge authority
around these sorts of things. You know, that
not sort of entered for thinking, you know,
everything's like lay down, all of the foundations
are there the walls of this this structure
this of this topic.
I think I would encourage people to be
more more questioning to to start with the
data. And I think there were other fantastic
things that people could do, and, you know,
I'm a dinosaur
in this sort of thing. But I think
there's a lot that could be done
with techniques like machine learning and so on.
To to look at the data that's available
and let people find patterns in it for
themselves.
Because, you know, I think it's always a
very interesting question in science and physics, you
know, we come to some
understanding the or some model
based on our starting point and the data,
But we're biased. Everything thing we do is
biased and, you know, we have ours and
how we how we decide to do measurements,
how we decide to do things.
May throwing, you know, these more modern
computer techniques that this enormously rich datasets sets
with thousands of data points, you might draw
out a whole different
pattern and things and and it might show
AAA deeper understanding.
Then, you know, what models are there. So
I I just encourage young people always to
question,
but for tip. Maybe that's the long thing
to say, but, you know, that's my feeling
with. I mean, do you ever suffer David
in in physics of kind of people going
into particle physics? That's the sort of sexy
area,
dare I say that and people maybe, you
know, sw you a bit and go and
do they always think of you going into
that feel first of all, you have a
competition with the particle physicists?
They they can be, of course, that sort
of healthy competition between those fields. But I
mean,
they could be quite they are quite different
fields I would say. I mean, particle physics
is... It can be quite
reduction is. You can reduce it down to
sort of finding particles and things like that.
And I think historically a lot people move
from physics 2 particle physics as that field
took off in the fifties and sixties and
so on.
And I think in many ways,
what happened was that nuclear physics turned out
to be too hard.
I know about Don't mean that in a
sort of p way that particle physics is
easy, But I mean that it's hard in
the sense that the the object you're looking
at
is very complicated. It involves hundreds of particles
acting
together. We don't have an overall model as
the nuclear where we would love to help
on various different models,
treating this different aspects of its behavior. But
it's extremely
challenging both to theory
and to experiment. And so that's why
countries are still investing so much in in
facilities to to study that. And, you know,
I think when I when I talk to
Students, I I do make that point, you
know, I think it's important to justify
at the outset. Why is still studying
a field which has bingo over for 100
years.
Not that is it that that is a
good... You know, it goes back to River
initial theory that there was a nucleus of
an anatomy It's about 19 11 I.
And you after then ask you know, after
hundred years don't, you know everything you you
want to know. And, of course, we do
know lots of things. But I think there's
a lot more so, we still don't know.
What's your favorite nucleus dare I ask? Do
you want favorite?
Do you don't want this a favor 1?
Well,
there's a there's a funny
funny story with with nuclei because
you always say,
study nuclei that have an even number of
protons and an even number of neutrons because
there's structure and their properties is is simple.
And if you study ones that have an
odd number of protons and a odd number
of neutrons, Their structure is extremely complicated.
So that's the kind of general rule, but
that there are some special ones that are
so called n equals zed
nuclei have the same number of protons and
neutrons.
And in those systems, even the odd adult
nuclei have a beautiful
simple symmetry that you can look at and
grasp
and get something nice out of it. So
III
studied some years ago, 1 of these odd,
n equals that nuclear was bromine 70. So
I think that would be my favorite. 1
you thought people were said to you your
math to study this, it would be very
complicated breaks it's talk.
For various reasons of cemetery so.
Absolutely nice. Yeah. I'll all that 1. Go
through that 1 there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And
thanks, David. Before we go... I'm. Haven't actually
asked you what the name the book were.
Book were you've written. You want to name
check them? Yes. So the... There is actually
gonna be free books in the end. The
only 2 of them are published so far.
And the other 1 is in sort of
final
stages of the preparation. So the first book
is called nuclear data, a primer
and that 1 focuses on things like these
gross properties, mass and radius, of the nucleus
and some simple
aspects of the structure of the nucleus.
Then the second book is called nuclear data,
a collective motion view. So that focuses is
on collected properties of nuclei,
particularly
rotation of nuclei and vibration of nuclei.
And the final 1 that John and I
just completely at the moment
is called nuclear data, an independent particle called
motion view. So that's looking at the other
extreme
where all the properties of this nucleus are
dictated by just 1 of the protons or
neutrons that makes it up. So we've got
a sort of general book
1 our collective behavior at 1 about, an
independent particle behavior.
And I think we're we kinda love to
write more, but we probably.
Enough for now. Said 2 the intelligence books.
Lovely, David. Before we go, 1 last question
I was thinking, nuclear physics in in sort
of the public mind, they associate that with
nuclear weapons. And the Oppenheimer film, did you
watch it? Did what did you make of
it?
Alright. I thought that film is very good.
Yeah. I... Because I I'd I
I, you know, I I often get worried,
but when I see the films a very
long.
3 hours. It was 3 hours wasn't it.
And I found...
I think I watched that film when I
watched the June 2 film,
and both those films were very long, but
then they came to the end that I
didn't notice that they were long. Now, it's
kinda like, 3 hours went by. I said,
in my mind, that's a good film. My
I bought it. I thought he was very
well done. It was very well active Wasn't
it. And Killing and Murphy was... I fought
very
very, very good as open oppenheimer, but and
I think it at the
the sense of the time and how those
people work. And it felt kind of
it could felt kind of real to me.
I I could see those scientists like,
who are acted as there's sort of real
peak, and I don't know what you felt.
But IIII
like to. Yeah. III only looked to my
watch once during the film, which I think
is a really good sign and, you know,
often I get quite bored with films.
And that 1, I didn't. There was only
once I looked at my watch. And, yeah,
it was 3 hours. It was quite remarkable.
Yeah.
Did it lead to a ups surge of
interest in physics or not had any impact
you think? Would do people not make the
link between bombs and the kind of research
you're doing?
Well, I hope they don't make
They do negative to what. IIII
don't know really. I only got people talking.
I mean, it's always got the. Got got
the, you know, and it has got people
talking and people who asked me about it
and things like that. But but I... I'm
not sure it's directly affected
students interested in, like, joining the field or
something like that. And not not to my
knowledge, but It'd I'd be interesting to
to know. I mean, obviously, that that that
film's got a lot of,
you know, very very sad historical
features to it. And, you know, it means,
it's a true story It's history. I I'd
be interesting to know,
how it's changed people's views of that about
the area of science.
Alright. Well, I hope your books get more
students into the field. So thanks so much,
David would been brilliant to talk to you
and
thanks for your time on the podcast.
Thank you very much.
Helium is an inner gas that is relatively
rare and earth's atmosphere.
However,
it plays crucial roles in science and technology.
Had, it's also used to float party balloons.
It's an expensive commodity at a non renewable
resource, which is why many users try to
recover and reuse as much of the element
as possible.
At the Uk's Isis,
neutron and
source,
That process is the responsibility of dale keeping,
who is the facility's
helium recovery manager.
He joins me down the line from Har
in Oxford.
Hi, Dale. Welcome to the podcast.
Hiya.
So so, Dale, how is helium used in
science and technology at Isis?
We mainly helium
to call samples down in a Cryo.
The helium
supplies heat exchanger,
which is connected to the sample space
The helium is supplied to the heat exchanger
and then is pumped across it to cool
the sample down via
evaporation to 1.6 k
Right. And so is that is that liquid
helium that you're using then? Yeah. So we
use liquid helium within the main bar? Of
the price that. Yeah. You're cooling samples. Is
that what you're cooling to to get them
down to to a very low temperature so
that people can make
make measurements at low temperatures? Is that is
that mostly what you're doing? Or are are
you cooling magnets and and and and other
things? Yeah. We we we do have super
conducting magnets.
And,
mainly,
what we find the samples eye, it could
be mainly a crystal or or powder
or something like that. Yeah. We we do
our other patients as well,
where we use maybe Cc.
Or which is close like refrigerators or flow
price stats and and things like that that
we we can use as well. And where
does our helium
supply come from at the moment. I mean,
I'm I'm guessing that you would get a
delivery from a from a specialist
supplier. But
where do they get the helium from?
Helium
is trapped in yes crust by imp role?
And is extracted as a product of the
liquid natural gas industry.
Therefore, it's only really found in a few
places around the world. For example, the Us,
Algeria,
Our he supply actually comes from Qatar. I
see. And it's... I'm I mean, I think
I'm right in saying that it's it's created
by the... Is it the radioactive
decay?
Of uranium, I think underground. Yeah. Produces the
helium, and then it somehow gets trapped in
with
with the natural gas and and and sort
of extracted
that way. Yeah. I think it's extracted from
fractional dis.
I mean, I'm guessing that... You know, there's
lots of radioactive
decay going on in the earth, but that's
a that's a fairly slow process. So
it it it is in limited supply, isn't
it? I mean, new new
supply, areas open up. I mean, you mentioned
Qatar, which I think is a fairly new
producer of helium. But how secure is is
the supply? If we don't use it responsibly?
Will it run out eventually?
Yeah. So people have predicted that Helium will
run out in,
a few hundred years time,
depending on the usage levels.
Things that, I, you know, I think do
affect the supply are maintenance of the gas
company's plant
weather conflict
you know, this is why we having a
system in place to capture as much helium
as we possibly.
Cam is is crucial to ensure a continuous
source for
scientific
experiments.
And and so how do you do that?
How do you how do you capture Helium
at the moment? Helium itself. It's it's a
tiny
Adam isn't it that can sort of sneak
out of your pipes
very easily. How how how do you how
do you recycle it and and capture it?
Is 1 of 1 of our biggest challenges
is is trying to keep all of the
helium leak tight.
You know, we have maybe 2 kilometers of
pipe work and hundreds of o to,
you know, try and keep on top of
which can be quite a challenge
for the team.
But... Yeah. We we try and recycle
all of the helium that's used out in
the experiments
So when the helium leaves the experiments at
atmospheric pressure is collected via a pipeline,
which then makes its way back to the
helium recovery building. The helium expands into
a very large
collection balloon, which is 22 meters cubes in
volume.
The helium is then compressed up to a
maximum of a hundred and 95 bar
gas then makes its way through series of
filters.
And then it will go into a man
depending on its purity
would depend upon what Mc bank it will
be put in. So
if it's less than 98 percent,
it go into what we call as our
sort of dirty bank.
If it's better than 98 percent efficient, it
will go into our clean
sort storage.
And then from there, when we want to
produce
liquid helium, we can then run
it's gas
through
a line dryer, which is essentially another filter,
and then it will make its way into,
delete viral or cold box.
And
first of all, it will enter a purifier
where it will remove all of its impurities,
and then it will go into the l
side of things to be cooled down,
use liquid.
And then from there, it will go into
a very large,
mother vessel,
which what we have... We have a 2000
liter
mother.
And then from there, we can d cam
into smaller mobile vessels.
And that's where we can
take these jira out into the into the
halls within Isis
to be used again for experiments. So It's
just a continuous
cycle.
So could can you give us an idea
of of how much liquid helium you would
be
producing
or using
at Isis in a... I don't know in
a week or a month? Is it a?
Is it is it a huge amount or
I suppose that's re relatively speaking? Yeah. So
so when we we we tend to use
a lot more helium when when we're in
cycle.
So our l fire produces
20 liquid is an hour.
And
when we're in cycle,
we we can almost guarantee that the l
fire will be running throughout throughout the cycle.
So it's it's it's quite a lot we
get
So in in cycle, does that mean when
the when when you're producing neutrons and ons
when people are doing experiments. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Okay. So so it sounds to me that,
you know, you you you have to put
quite a bit of effort into into keeping
your helium in the pipes, and then
recycling it. Are are there alternatives to to
using helium for some cryo
applications at Isis?
Yeah. So So we can use
close like refrigerators
to to call our samples,
such as pulse shoots. However, you know, they
are slower to reach low temperatures,
and they won't go below 4.5 k.
That there is also the argument that this
uses a lot of electricity
as opposed to use helium that has already
been recycled
Oh, I see. Oh, that's interesting because I
mean, I would have thought that, you know,
sort of re
helium would that that that would have a
certain energy cost to it. But but you're
saying that that that is more efficient than
than using these...
Mechanical coolers.
Yeah. Yeah. Because because we're we're l
virtually all the time. Is
it sort of offset the electrical side of
using a Cc. And As was as I
mentioned in the intro, Helium is also used
in in party balloons And I think a,
you know, a lot of
physicists,
particularly those who work in cryo.
Are, you know, a a gassed guest by
this that, you know, they they see party
balloons as a as a as wasting
a a finite and very valuable
resource.
But you're you're involved in a program to
to try to recover some of that helium
that's used for balloons. Can you Can you
tell us a bit about that?
Yeah. So so I presented
a local school to talk about the importance
of recycling
tied this into how we can recycle helium
at Isis.
So the school children
and now recycle their helium balloons that would
have otherwise being discarded.
The this this helium
that they're recycling. And it it will be
used in experiments.
And,
you know, it's nice the children
can have a direct impact
on the science that is taking place Isis.
I I think they should feel very proud
that's what they're doing.
And and how does that work? Do you...
Do do you have, like, a big balloon
that you you sort of d can't
the helium from the small balloons into and
then take that big balloon back to Isis.
Is that how it works. We're we're able
to receive the balloons from the school.
Get get delivered to isis. So
we simply just take the balloons and and
run it through a small vacuum pump.
At low pressure, which would just go back
to our back to our large helium balloon
bag. So
yeah. It's very very quick. Very easy. Do
do you think that's that's something that could
be done on a larger scale.
I mean, III have no idea, you know,
but how how much Helium is used
in the Uk, for example,
you know, to to to inflate balloons. But
I mean, could could this be something that
could be done on a on a wider
scale, do you think? For mine for my
understanding. And this is sort of the first
this this been really done around this. So,
you know, it'd be great if if people
could do that.
Some from my understanding, there's only...
I think there's only around 20
helium recovery plants,
in the in in in England. So
I think it would be quite a challenge
to
implement something
on a big scale. So... Lily,
Good stuff. And and finally Dale,
you your background, your training is in auto
mechanics
and
and plumbing.
Can you
maybe tell our listeners how you became interested
in working
at Isis? And
you know, you know, how how you got
this job as Helium
recovery
manager. Yeah. I started off as
a vehicle
technician where
where I was a teenager,
you know. Play him with things in the
garage.
Yeah. And then it went from there. I
got got got qualified as a vehicle technician
and wanting to carry on learn in, so
I don't I done some plumbing in and
then moved on to some gas work. Yeah.
So we're a job that was advertised at
Isis, and
we're gonna the cryo gen team. So so,
yeah. I applied.
And, yeah. I was fortunate to get it.
So, yeah, I just always wanted to continue
my learning and and
you know,
he can prove him.
And with Cryo,
you know, for for me every day is
a school day,
I'll always be learning with cryo.
So
yeah. Really really really fascinating to me really.
And and what sort of advice would you
give to somebody who has,
you know, the technical skills,
and wants to, you know, work in a
in a scientific
facility like Isis. What...
Did you have any career advice for them?
How how should they pursue that?
Yeah. I'd I'd just say,
you know, just just just keep keep learning.
I didn't know what I wanted to do.
Until I was in in my twenties. So,
you know, there's there's there's plenty of time
to, you know, find find the right route
for you. I was very hesitant about applying
for the job because I didn't have a
certain
qualifications
around,
Cryo
but, yeah, gave a go, and yeah, I
was lucky enough to, be accepted. So, yeah,
I'd just say, you know, get get give
it a go, You know? This is something
you're interested in, You know, but go for
it. Well, that's great. Thanks. Thanks for talking
about Helium Recovery dell. That's that's 1 of
my favorite subjects, so smell problems.
I'm afraid that's all the time we have
for this week's podcast. Thanks to dale keeping
David Jenkins and Mat team
For joining me today and a special thanks
to our producer Fred Isles.
I hope you've been enjoying the new music
in the podcast.
It's called 137
and was composed and performed by the physicist
Philip Lori.
He talks about the significance of that number
and the creative process involved in making the
music
over on the Physics World stories podcast.
And you can listen to that on the
Physics World website or at your favorite podcast
provider.
Just look for the headline,
swift earthquakes and new podcast music
inspired by the fine structure constant.
And you heard right, the podcast also looks
at the seismic activity
associated with Taylor Swift concerts
with the si
Jacqueline
Kaplan Hour,