11Mon
Coordinator: Mr. Vikrant Ghanekar
https://badal.hbcse.tifr.res.in/index.php/s/nXs3YczFN6PfKgA
11Mon
Coordinator: Ms. Swapnila Desai
https://badal.hbcse.tifr.res.in/index.php/s/8YjMbiTTMpJSJG4
12Tue
Coordinator: Prof. Mashood K. K.
Prof. Syed Minhaz Hossain from IIEST Shibpur
From Pocket to Physics Lab: Exploring Experiments with a Smartphone
Blending innovative, open-ended experiments with traditional undergraduate and postgraduate Physics laboratory exercises can inspire Gen Z students to engage more deeply with research and experimental development. Such an approach encourages learners not only to perform prescribed experiments but also to design and build their own experimental setups, nurturing creativity and scientific curiosity. In this talk, I will showcase a series of experiments in which a simple mobile phone becomes a versatile scientific tool for data acquisition in the form of audio, images, and videos. Audio recordings are analysed to determine the coefficient of restitution using sound analysis software, while image processing techniques are employed to extract the LED's emission spectrum and estimate its bandgap. Image analysis technique has been employed to study scattering intensity distribution near the critical point of a 2nd order phase transition known as critical opalescence and to extract the values of the critical exponents. I will also talk about the fundamentals of Fourier optics and demonstrate its application in analysing two-dimensional diffraction patterns using image analysis. The use of video-tracking software will be demonstrated for the study of dynamical systems, highlighting how everyday technology can transform the way we teach and explore physics. At last, I’ll demonstrate a simple experiment showing the analogy between the curvature of space and Newtonian Force by tracking the motion of a floating ball on a curved liquid meniscus.
Dr. Syed Minhaz Hossain is a professor and former head of the Department of Physics at IIEST, Shibpur. He performed his doctoral research on the optoelectronic properties of nanocrystalline Silicon at the Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering, Jadavpur University, and received his PhD degree in 2002. He got M.Sc. and B.Sc. degrees from the Department of Physics, Jadavpur University in 1996 and 1994, respectively. Minhaz was awarded BOYSCAST fellowship by the DST (Govt of India) to work on nano-crystalline silicon-based 3rd generation photovoltaics at the University of Trento, Italy, during 2007-08. He also received the KR fellowship from the American Physical Society (APS) during 2012-13 to work on Physics Education at SUNY @ Buffalo, USA. He was a visiting professor at the University of Buffalo during the Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 semesters. His current research interests cover the area of low-dimensional silicon, carbon and their nano-composites for photonic, photovoltaic, sensing and quantum device applications. He has supervised doctoral research of fifteen PhD students so far and published over a hundred research papers in different journals and conference proceedings. Currently, three PhD students are working with him. Beyond the mainstream, he is actively involved in physics education research through the development of experiments for postgraduate, undergraduate and school-level physics teaching. He has been awarded with Prof. B. L. Saraf Medal in the year 2025 by the Indian Association of Physics Teachers (IAPT) for his contribution to Physics Education. Other than physics, he is fond of music, sports and wildlife photography.