London –The Institute of Physics Prize has been awarded to a 15 year old Indian-origin school boy, Pratap Singh for successfully carrying out an experiment that substantiated an effect of Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity.
Pratap Singh who won the 500 pounds Institute of Physics (IOP) prize is a student at The Perse School, Cambridge. It is during the Bing Bang Fair held at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) Birmingham that Singh received his award. The Big Bang Fair attracted more than 200 students aged 11 to 18 years who demonstrated their projects to thousands of visitors.
Singh used two Geiger-Muller tubes to detect cosmic-ray muons in his experiment. According his thinking, unless time dilation occurs the two tubes should not reach earth in detectable numbers. After creating a mathematical model, he used a Raspberry Pi and some statistical analysis which disclosed that they track the model that was anticipated by Einstein’s 1905 theory of special relativity.
The price which includes a trip to a national physics-related activity was jointly judged by the IOP’s regional officer for the Midlands, David Wilkinson and Johanna Kieniewicz.
Speaking after receiving the award, Singh expressed his gratitude by saying “I am very happy that I have been able to bring together the theory by creating a mathematical model by using school physics lab equipment to build an apparatus that will observe relativistic time dilation”.
“All along, I have had great interest in physics hence the reason I embraced the year-long opportunity I got at our school to study a topic of my choice. However, I knew very well that I wanted to do something related to Physics.” The 15year old student told Cambridge News.
Kieniewicz who was one of the judges congratulated Singh on winning the Institute of Physics prize while describing his project as outstanding having demonstrated remarkable creativity in the way he approached the problem. Practical ingenuity was experienced in bringing together the theory which was grounded by robust science.
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