Thursday 8 July 2010

Tales from Turin

We're back from a very hot Turin, Italy.

The main purpose of the trip was to give a live chemistry demo at an event called Science in the City (part of ESOF2010 - the Euroscience Open Forum).

The lecture went well and you can expect to see some video highlights very soon.

But while in Turin we took the opportunity to make some other films for The Periodic Table of Videos.

Firstly, we shot a few bits about Turin's very own Primo Levi, who is renowned for his writing about chemistry.

The picture below shows Professor Poliakoff sitting in Levi's old lecture theatre. We also spent time in Levi's old labs.


And of course we couldn't visit Turin without making a film about its famous Shroud.

What does a mysterious holy relic have to do with chemistry, I hear you ask?

Well, our main focus will be on radiocarbon dating - a process famously associated with this much-discussed linen cloth.

The Professor revealed a few things I never realised about radioactive carbon - and even shared an unexpected link between himself and the Turin Shroud.

The videos are being edited as we speak and you should start seeing them soon.

(Our thanks to COST for supporting our trip to Turin)

No comments:

Post a Comment