Outreach

Here we describe some of the outreach initiatives with the participation of the members of the Nikhef Theory group.

• Nikhef theorists participate in the yearly Nikhef Open Days. Some pictures of Nikhef theorists answering questions from visitor at the Open Day of October 2018 can be found here. A representative selection of the posters (in Dutch) displayed at the Open Days is provided below:
  • What is the Standard Model of particle physics?
  • What are some of the most famous formulae in physics?
  • How can we discover New Physics beyond the Standard Model?
  • The Higgs particle and the origin of mass.
  • What distance and energy scales are relevant in the world of particle physics?
  • Cosmology: the science of the whole Universe.
• For short explanations of some of the research carried out by members of the Theory group, please take a look at the Paperclip videos of Melissa van Beekveld, Juan Rojo, and Jorinde van de Vis.
• Members of the theory group also contribute to a number of blogs, such as the Nikhef blog or the Interactions blog:
  • Master student Philine van Vliet on attending the Lindau Nobel meeting.
  • Staff member Juan Rojo on the Higgs boson and as guest blogger of Interactions.org.

• As one of the work package leaders in outreach for the Dutch Black Hole Consortium and as the European coordinator of Educational Outreach of the Virgo Collaboration of gravitational wave research, Gideon Koekoek organised or is otherwise involved in a number of outreach activities and initiatives:

  • National public seminars and Q&A sessions on gravitational wave science (co-organised by Royal Netherlands Physics Society and Virgo Collaboration): https://www.nnv.nl/Online_NNV-evenementen/ , https://youtu.be/gsf-2pTopCk , https://youtu.be/GL0IoxJKpM4

  • Series of videos on black holes, gravitational waves, and their measurements by the Einstein Telescope, aimed at children 8-14 (co-produced by Discovery Museum Kerkrade).

  • Universiteit van Nederland lecture on gravity and the Equivalence Principle, for general public.

  • Universiteit van Nederland lecture on sound and superposition.

  • Lectures and seminars on commemoration of groundbreaking events in physics history, e.g. the measurement of the bending of light (co-organised with Royal Society for Arts & Sciences, KNAW).

  • Lecturing courses in theoretical physics under the HOVO umbrella, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Courses have included: General Relativity, Cosmology, The Physics of Energy, Photons and Light, Relativistic Quantum Mechanics, Schwarzschild Black Holes, Non-linear dynamics and Chaos Theory.

  • A national website on special and general relativity for use in secondary education (under development).