Eleven schools in NTU participated in the 2020 Three Minute Thesis NTU Finale, which was held in mid-August largely as a virtual competition due to COVID-19. The Three Minute Thesis challenges research students to effectively explain the significance of their projects to a non-specialist audience in just three minutes.
A team of students from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS) has achieved an outstanding result in the International Mathematics Competition (IMC) 2020, earning 2 Silvers, 1 Bronze, and 2 Honourable Mentions.
Every year in CoS, dozens of PhD students defend their thesis and earn their doctorate, the highest university degree. In this series, we catch up with some new doctors to find out about their experience of doing a PhD in CoS, what made them embark on the intense four year journey and what plans they have for the future. Next up, we have Dr Phan Quang Gia Chuong, a Research Fellow in SPMS.
The School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (SPMS) organized the 2nd annual Odyssey Research Symposium on Friday, 7 August 2020.
The Michelson interferometer is a device that uses optical intereference to measure extremely small distance variations. First invented in the late 19th century, it remains in active use today; in 2017, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the LIGO experiment for using large-scale Michelson interferometers to detect gravitational waves. Recently, our team at SPMS set out to construct a Michelson interferometer for science education and outreach.
Suppose you only have enough energy to produce a dozen photons — what can you use them to see? In a new theoretical paper, the ultimate detection limits imposed by the laws of quantum physics have been derived, solving a decade-old open problem in quantum theory.
A new form of carborane, a cluster of carbon and boron atoms arranged in an unusual flat pattern, has been isolated by chemists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. This discovery has overturned a 50-year old set of theoretical rules central to cluster chemistry, paving the way to a new family of chemicals.
Edible bird’s nest, built by the aerodramus genus of swiftlets, has long been regarded as a quintessential health food in Chinese culture. There remain many myths, beliefs, and puzzles surrounding it that have yet to be thoroughly investigated by science.
The convocation ceremonies for this year have been postponed in light of the pandemic, but don’t let that dampen your spirits to celebrate this important milestone! In this series, Science@NTU took some time to know the 2020 CoS valedictorians. First up, we have Kang Hwee Young from the School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences.
As we all know, space is three dimensional. Many aspects of physics, including the fundamental properties of matter, depend strongly on the dimensionality of space. For instance, 2D materials like graphene, in which the atoms are confined to a two dimensional plane, have properties very different from standard 3D materials. Now, researchers have created a synthetic material that behaves as though it has four dimensions (4D), higher than the number of dimensions in the space around us.