Scottish Schoolgirl Wins Intel Award for £40 Cloud Chamber

A cloud chamber is a nifty piece of scientific equipment that physicists use to study cosmic rays. Essentially, it makes the particles’ trails visible. Like a lot of scientific equipment, such chambers tend to run to quite some money. So, this year’s Intel International Science and Engineering Fair’s (ISEF) First Award for physics and astronomy went to a young scientist from Scotland who figured out how to make one for about £40 (US$80) from a plastic fish tank, an aluminum sheet and some felt. Congratulations to Holly Batchelor, an 18-year-old student at The Mary Erskine School in Edinburgh.

In practical terms, her invention allows almost any school to create a cloud chamber to study cosmic rays. Contemporary science suggests that cosmic rays influence cloud formation and, therefore, the weather and climate change. In other words, this wasn’t just another vinegar-and-baking-soda volcano science fair project. It was real science.

The ISEF is the World Cup of science fairs. Ms. Batchelor earned her place there by winning the Crest Science Fair, run by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The Intel ISEF in Albuquerque, New Mexico, brings together nearly 1,500 students from more than 40 nations, kids who have won fairs in their home countries. Needless to say, the competition is pretty tight. Broken out into various branches of science, the competition runs for a week.

Ms. Batchelor’s efforts got her £1,500 in prize money and a paid internship Agilent Technologies for the summer. Then, there were the parts of the prize package that only a scientist would find exciting: she’ll attend a conference in Budapest and will have an asteroid named after her. She told The Scotsman’s reporter Ian Johnston, “More than the prize money, I love the idea of having my name in space forever. It’s a huge privilege.”

She had considered a career in fashion design, but passed it up to study physics at St. Andrews University. She’s just finished her advanced Highers (much tougher than the SATs) in math, physics, applied mechanics and product design. Her scientific ambitions remain open, “I’ve really only looked at particle physics, but the other branches [of physics] look like a good laugh, too.” Perhaps if one understood fluid dynamics a bit more (or at all), one might agree.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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