Description, info and plan

Dear all,

List of exhibits the client will show and that we need to consider in our design:
- experiments in which they supercool water
- some molecular models in which they build some ice crystals, linked to people making their own snowflakes
- some sort of planetary model in which they display a little model of a solar system and discuss water and ice in space
- ice sculptures.

Also:
It should be as clear as possible to people what the exhibit is about from a long way off. Likewise, one very large computer screen (bigger than the large apple ones) might help to draw people in from a distance since they have some very high quality animations to show.

The plan: 

The exhibit space is 4m x 3m and the maximum height is 2.5m.

 


Other info by the client/exhibitor/scientist:
 
Description of scientific content and background:
Water is essential for life and also has many surprising properties. It has fascinated scientists throughout the ages. Robert Boyle, for example, tried to understand why ice floats on water, and Michael Faraday why the surface of ice is slippery. Not only are these fundamental questions, they are also of great relevance to cloud formation, weather modification, and climate change. It is now an exciting time for water research. Three hundred and fifty years after Boyle, and two hundred years after Faraday, it is possible to use the laws of quantum mechanics developed by Schrödinger, Einstein, and others to shed light on the mysteries of water. Increased computer power and novel algorithms for solving quantum mechanical equations allow us, for the first time, to accurately simulate the properties of water on the nanoscale, unravelling complex structures comprised of hundreds or thousands of molecules. As a result we are also able to explore the molecular level mechanisms behind the questions pondered by Boyle and Faraday and many others since. Our simulations, for example, reveal how individual water molecules arrange in to tiny ice particles, what happens when you squeeze ice at very high pressures, and how water dissolves salt.

We attempt to understand water and ice on the nanoscale, explaining how ice crystals grow, how clouds form, and how water freezes by simulating these processes on supercomputers.

With state-of-the-art computer simulation techniques some of the mysterious properties of water can now be explained such as why pure water is not easy to freeze or why ice is slippery. We will demonstrate some specific properties of water with a series of simple (and repeatable) hands on experiments, videos, and interactive quizzes. Participants will also have the opportunity to watch these processes unfold on the nanoscale with real-time computer simulations using some of the world’s largest supercomputers. Water is essential for life. It is the one chemical that everyone can relate to, yet many are unaware of its mysterious or scientifically anomalous properties. Water research is a truly interdisciplinary “field”, attracting the attention of scientists from all backgrounds (chemistry, physics, biology, materials science, engineering, etc). As a result our exhibit, which will explain some of water’s interesting properties, will be of widespread appeal, not least when the connection of our research to contemporary issues such as weather modification and climate change is explained. This is also a chance for budding scientists to see supercomputers in action.      

We are fortunate to work in a field that is both fundamental yet easy for the public to embrace. We will concentrate on finding a balance between simple experiments and the simulations we use to understand them. Most demonstrations will involve household goods and will include instantly freezing super-cooled water, making clouds in a bottle, and creating unique snowflakes with a random number computer simulation (that can be printed and taken away) and personalised ice-lollies. The participants will also be able to run real-time simulations of these processes on supercomputers, so they can see them occur on the molecular scale.
The animations that come from of our simulations all have very high visual appeal and we are familiar with transferring them to video formats for the web. For our practical demonstrations we will provide simple tutorials using video and accompanying text, so the public can see the demonstrations at home, and repeat them. Events on the day will be filmed, and the highlights made available. The quiz and personalised snowflake maker will be put on the website.

Our work this year on ice nucleation at metal surfaces which lead to the discovery of the first ice structure built from pentagons (paper 1) attracted coverage from a wide variety of sources including Chemistry World, Physics Today, Physics World, Earth Magazine, the New Scientist, the Discovery Channel, Fox News, and various websites. Our research is, however, constantly moving forward and many new exciting results are anticipated before the exhibition (e.g. ice nucleation on atmospherically relevant dust particles, ices relevant to Jupiter’s moons), unpublished and “hot from the computer”.
We are a large interdisciplinary group with a broad range of backgrounds. In Michaelides’ team alone (www.chem.ucl.ac.uk/ice) there are scientists with backgrounds in Chemistry, Physics, Materials- and Computer-Science. This varied expertise will allow us to easily interact with visitors from all sorts of backgrounds.

Our strong computational experience (very strong IT, computer programming, and web skills) means that we are well equipped to make professional-quality online interfaces illustrating our computer simulations.

Many of our team have strong track records of communicating our results with the public. For example, Michaelides’ was the focus of a short television documentary made by the German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle and has contributed to the Royal Society of Chemistry’s periodic table of podacsts. We regularly participate in our departmental open days.

Aside from receiving financial support for our exhibit from each of our three individual departments within UCL, we will also receive financial support and encouragement from the Thomas Young Centre, the London Centre for the Theory and Simulation of Materials (www.thomasyoungcentre.org) and its large community of leading research groups in the theory and simulation of materials.