Virtual tour gives physics students a rare glimpse of world-leading science facility

City of Portsmouth College Physics students got a unique insight into the inner workings of one of the UK’s most powerful scientific facilities this week – sparking new conversations, and career ambitions.

The students got a private virtual tour of Diamond Light Source – a world leading stadium-sized synchrotron that’s 10,000 times more powerful than a standard microscope that scientists use to study anything from fossils and fine art to viruses.

Representatives from Diamond Light Source, which is based at Harwell, a research and innovation supercampus in Oxfordshire, gave the students a masterclass on how the synchrotron works and demonstrated this by showing them how it determined the skull structure of one of the first humans to walk the planet.

They were also shown how it “read” a Pompeiian letter buried under ash for thousands of years.

“The students’ mouths dropped open when they saw how it read the Roman letter,” said Physics lecturer Joseph Blake. “They found it a really enjoyable and deeply interesting event overall. Many of them have now researched apprenticeships with the facility and have ambitions of working there.”

The virtual tour and masterclass was an added extra for the students – and an example of how Physics at COPC goes an extra mile to ensure the students received more than a grade at the end of their time here.