Fitzwilliam College Online Winter School Programme
Dr Miles Stopher
Director of Admissions and Affiliated Lecturer, Department of Engineering, Cambridge | Senior Tutor, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge | Bye-Fellow in Engineering at Fitzwilliam College
Dr Miles Stopher is the Senior Tutor at Sidney Sussex College, and the Director of Admissions and an Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of Engineering. He is a Bye-Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, having previously served as Acting Senior Tutor. He has supervised and directed studies in Engineering for 10 years, across a number of colleges at the University, including his alma mater, Jesus College. His research focuses on nuclear reactor design, with particular interest in the design of nanostructured materials for applications in extreme environments, such as the reactor core, radiation damage modelling, hydrogen embrittlement, and the engineering and safety of integral and passive small modular reactors. He lectures Nuclear Materials for Part III materials scientists at Cambridge, An Introduction to Materials Science for Engineers, and Nuclear Materials for Engineers on the MPhil in Nuclear Energy. He has also lectured on nuclear safety and thermohydraulics. Miles supervises Part IA and Part IB Mechanics, Materials and Structures to engineering undergraduates at Cambridge. Prior to his arrival at Cambridge, he worked on the design of the Royal Navy’s Dreadnought-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines.
■ Course Content
Engineering encompasses many disciplines, of which mechanical engineering is the oldest and most wide-ranging. Mechanical engineers are concerned with the design, analysis, and manufacture of mechanical systems and machines that underpin modern society.Aerospace engineering is one of many specialised branches of mechanical engineering, applying shared principles specifically to aircraft and spacecraft.
This intensive course provides students with an authentic introduction to studying aerospace and mechanical engineering at university. It surveys the most significant specialisms within these fields, grounding students in the fundamental principles upon which they are built and demonstrating how these concepts are applied to real-world engineering challenges. By doing so, the course equips students with the knowledge and problem-solving skills needed to gain a strong head start in undergraduate engineering study.
| Date | 31st January Sunday
5 pm - 8 pm |
1st February Monday
5 pm - 8 pm |
2nd February Tuesday
5 pm - 8 pm |
3rd February Wednesday
5 pm - 8 pm |
4th February Thursday
5 pm - 8 pm |
| Part I: Aircraft design and aerodynamics | Part I: Airframes, avionics and flight control | Part II: Engine design: origins | Part II: Engine design: current and future designs | Part II:Aircraft economics and sustainability | |
| Date | 8th February Monday
5 pm - 8 pm |
9th February Tuesday
5 pm - 8 pm |
10th February Wednesday
5 pm - 8 pm |
11th February Thursday
5 pm - 8 pm |
12th February Friday
5 pm - 8 pm |
| Part II: Engineering materials | Part III: Power plants: Nuclear | Part III: Power plants: Renewables | Part III: Climate, socioeconomics, policy and ethics | Final Presentations |
*List of prerequisite knowledge:
The emphasis during the course will be on the physical understanding of the principles involved. Only elementary mathematical methods will be used. The key is the engineering and not the mathematics behind it. As such, I expect students to have a basic awareness of circuits and their components, alongside a basic understanding of mechanics (see below).
*Office hours: to be determined closer to the time.
*Fitzwilliam College reserves the right to changes to the course content or the course instructor.
Dr. Joao Rodrigues
Bye-Fellow of St Catharine’s College, University of Cambridge
After many years working in Quantum Field Theory and Particle Physics, specifically in the parton structure of the nucleons, I changed my field of research to the climate of the polar regions. In the Polar Oceans Physics Group in Cambridge, I studied how the Arctic sea ice cover has changed in recent decades as a consequence of global warming. I examined sea ice thickness data collected by submarines and satellites and attempted to quantify the dramatic thinning of the Arctic Sea ice. At present, I teach several Physics and Mathematics courses for first-, second- and third-year students in the Natural Sciences and the Mathematical Tripos of the University of Cambridge.
■ Course Content
The motion of particles at speeds close to the speed of light is described by equations that are very different from those that we apply to study the motion of the objects in our daily life, such as the planets around the Sun. Special Relativity provides the theoretical framework to study those fast moving particles. We shall study phenomena such as the time dilation, length contraction and the famous twin paradox, which have no counterpart in the classical theory.
And let us explore the Quantum World. The atomic and subatomic particles behave in a way that for us, used to the certainties of Classical Dynamics and Electromagnetism, is unambiguously strange. Quantum Mechanics suggests there is an essential randomness in quantum phenomena and the best theory we have, based on the wave function and Schrodinger equation, can only predict the probabilities of events to occur. Such peculiarities of the theory were not appealing to everyone. We shall look at how Einstein objected to the standard formulation of Quantum Mechanics and how his ideas led to new developments.
| Date | 31st January Sunday
2 pm - 5 pm |
1st February Monday
2 pm - 5 pm |
2nd February Tuesday
2 pm - 5 pm |
3rd February Wednesday
2 pm - 5 pm |
4th February Thursday
2 pm - 5 pm |
| The Lorentz
Transformation |
Relativistic
Kinematics |
Relativistic
Dynamics |
Relativistic Optics | Appearance of
rapidly moving objects |
|
| Date | 8th February Monday
2 pm - 5 pm |
9th February Tuesday
2 pm - 5 pm |
10th February Wednesday
2 pm - 5 pm |
11th February Thursday
2 pm - 5 pm |
12th February Friday
2 pm - 5 pm |
| The historical
development of QM |
The postulates
of QM and simple applications |
Heisenberg’s
Uncertainty relations |
The EPR paradox and
Bell’s inequality |
Final
Presentations |
Newtonian dynamics: Newton’s Laws, Notions of force, mass, momentum, energy and work
Optics: The laws of reflection and refraction, Notion of frequency, period, wavelength
Mathematics: Elementary techniques of differentiation and integration, Techniques for solving simple first and second order differential equations (desired but not strictly necessary)
*Test your knowledge of the prerequisites! Can you answer the questions below?
1. Igor is a cosmonaut in the International Space Station, orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 408 km at speed of 28000 km/h. What is his acceleration and what gravitational force does the Earth exert on him.
2. You apply a 4.9 N force to the free end of a spring, stretching it from its relaxed state by 12 mm. What is the spring constant? What force does the spring exert on you if you stretch it by 17 mm? How much work does the spring force do on your hand?
3. The wavelength of x rays produced in the Stanford Linear Accelerator is 0.067 fm; what is the frequency of these x rays?
*Recommended reading list (optional):
Halliday and Resnick, Fundamentals of Physics (Relativity and Quantum Mechanics chapters only);
A Einstein, The Principle of Relativity;
R Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Quantum Mechanics (Chapter 1 only);
*Office hours: to be determined closer to the time.
*Fitzwilliam College reserves the right to changes to the course content or the course instructor.
Dr Peter Bolgar
Fellow and College Lecturer at Fitzwilliam College in the University of Cambridge | Director of Studies and College Lecturer at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge
Dr Peter Bolgar is a Fellow and College Lecturer in Chemistry at Fitzwilliam College, and he is also the Director of the FitzEd Educational Programmes. He completed his undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge, followed by a PhD in supramolecular chemistry at the same place. His research focused on the synthesis and characterisation of sequence polymers that are able to form sequence-selective duplexes, similar to nucleic acids. Peter now specialises in teaching chemistry at the university level, having lectured a range of courses from the first, second and third year of the undergraduate curriculum. Peter is a member of the UK Chemistry Olympiad Working Group, and he mentors students for the International Chemistry Olympiad both nationally and internationally.
■ Course Content
This course lets participants explore advanced topics in different fields of undergraduate-level chemistry, each of which are fundamental to your studies of a chemistry degree.The course is built on concepts that you will be familiar with from school curriculum. We will quickly extend your knowledge in the fields of atomic and molecular orbital theory, spectroscopy, organic chemistry and some topics in physical chemistry to give you a significant head start in your university education. I am looking forward to exploring the highlights of some undergraduate-level Chemistry curriculum with you!
| Date | 31st January Sunday
5 pm - 8 pm |
1st February Monday
5 pm - 8 pm |
2nd February Tuesday
5 pm - 8 pm |
3rd February Wednesday
5 pm - 8 pm |
4th February Thursday
5 pm - 8 pm |
| Atomic and Molecular Orbitals, Molecular structures and shapes | Isomerism in Chemistry Part I | Isomerism in Chemistry Part II | NMR spectroscopy | Introduction to Organic Reactivity and Organic Reaction Mechanisms | |
| Date | 8th February Monday
5 pm - 8 pm |
9th February Tuesday
5 pm - 8 pm |
10th February Wednesday
5 pm - 8 pm |
11th February Thursday
5 pm - 8 pm |
12th February Friday
5 pm - 8 pm |
| Acids & Bases | Competing equilibria: pH calculations | Calculations in quantitative analytical chemistry | Kinetics | Final Presentations |
*List of prerequisite knowledge:
GCSE-level chemistry.
*Test your knowledge of the prerequisites! Can you answer the questions below?
1. Draw the dot and cross diagram of sulfur dioxide.
2. Calculate the volume of 0.1 mol dm-3 sulfuric acid necessary to neutralise 25.6 grams of calcium hydroxide.
3. Draw the structural formula for ethanol and pentane.
*Recommended reading list (optional):
The relevant topics in any A-level chemistry textbook.
*Office hours: To be determined closer to the time.
*Fitzwilliam College reserves the right to changes to the course content or the course instructor.
