UNIVERSITY boffins from East London are inviting the public to put on eye patches and join a motley band of scientists for a voyage through the strange seas of particle physics. They operating a mind blowing’ installation to demonstrate the visual equivalent of a massive sonic boom

By Mike Brooke

UNIVERSITY boffins from East London are inviting the public to put on eye patches and join a motley band of scientists for a voyage through the strange seas of particle physics.

A crew of expert navigators from the University of London’s Queen Mary College at Mile End is operating a mind blowing’ installation in the atmospheric Shunt Lounge at London Bridge to demonstrate the visual equivalent of a massive sonic boom.

The installation is a fusion of 50,000 tonnes of super pure’ water with light and science which was inspired by physicists at the subterranean Super-Kamiokande neutrino observatory in Tokyo.

The neutrino is one of the most abundant building blocks of nature, yet is one of the least understood. Neutrinos interact very, very rarely with normal matter such as the Earth, or people, or any other bit of the visible universe, say the boffins.

Observing them gives scientists an insight into the basic nature of the universe and the laws of physics.

It is these particles producing electrons and other minute dust’ travelling faster than the speed of light that produce the sonic boom’ which has inspired the Queen Mary crew to put together a public show.

The demonstrations are each evening till Saturday and from next Wednesday until the following Saturday at 8pm at the Shunt Lounge in Joiner Street, under London Bridge station. Cost is �5 Wed-Thurs and �10 Fri-Sat, booking online.

But it requires photo-ID to get in to see this sensitive piece of 21st century science gizmo.