1. Online Physics Revision Lecture, Sunday, 11th September
The lecture will be presented by Sandor Kazi of Melbourne Girls' College and Paul Cuthbert of University High School.  The format will be the same as last year's lecture. The lecture will be presented as a Zoom webinar for which the students will need to book, the cost last year was $25 per student and is being reviewed at this week's Vicphysics meeting.  Teachers making a group booking will need to provide the students' name and email addresses. Each student will be sent the Zoom link before the lecture. Teachers can also include themselves in the booking.  For more details and to book when the cost is finalised is here.

The structure of the program is that Sandor and Paul will each take it in turn to present a 45 min talk on an Area of Study with a 15 minute gap in between.  The program starts at 9:00am and runs until 1:45pm.

There will be course summaries available.  During the webinar there will be a panel behind the scenes answering the students' questions in the chat room.  The chat room comments will also be saved and forwarded to all participants.

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2. Northern Hemisphere 2022 Physics Exam paper and solutions
The exam paper can be downloaded from here from the VCAA website.

Detailed solutions prepared by Vicphysics are available on the Vicphysics website .. The solutions are written for students for when they use the exam as a practice paper later in the year.  The solutions include a suggested marking scheme.  The average score for each question will be added later, when released by VCAA.  There is also at the end, a set of extra revision questions based on the information provided in the stem of many of the exam questions.

Vicphysics will also be providing a review of the exam paper to VCAA.  If you would like to comment on specific questions, etc, please use our new Forum.  Your comments will be useful in formulating our response.  Check item 5 below.

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3. Public Lecture: Impacts! Rocks from space colliding with Planets, 6:30pm, 27th July, Storey Hall, RMIT
The AIP Women in Physics Lecturer for 2022, A/Prof Katarina Miljkovic, will be giving a public lecture at 6:30pm on 27th July at Storey Hall, RMIT.
If you wish to attend you can register on Eventbrite here or you can view the livestream on Microsoft Teams by clicking here . 4.Seeking a Physics teacher? Seeking a new position?
The Vicphysics Teachers' Network has a Job Ads page to assist schools in finding a physics teacher.
There is four (4) schools seeking a physics teacher:

• Mount Eliza Secondary College (Closes 20th July)
• Brighton Secondary College (Closes 25th July)
• Viewbank College (Closes 26th July)
• Euroa Secondary College (Closes 27th July)

The webpage is updated every weekend.  The webpage also has a link on how schools can register a position and lodge a payment for this service. 6. Events for Students
a)  Girls in Physics Breakfasts in 2022

There are two events open for bookings, others may follow later this term.  They are:

• Thursday, 28th July in Central Melbourne.  The speaker is A/Prof Katarina Miljkovic, the AIP Women in Physics lecturer for 2022 and her topic is 'Impacts! Rocks from space colliding with Planets' Closing date: Friday, 22nd July
• Friday, 19th August at Mildura.  The speaker is Dr Judy Hart and her topic is 'Developing new materials for Renewable Energy'

Click here for more details of each event, such as promotional flyers, speakers' bios and abstracts of their talks.  There are also links for make a booking.

Cost: $15 per student if booking with a credit card through Trybooking and $25 if using bank transfer with an invoice .  There is a discount for low ICSEA schools.

b) Physics Gymnasium: Lectures for students - University of Melbourne
Formally known as the VCE lectures, while they do explore the current VCE curriculum, these lectures are open to students of all ages with a keen interest in Physics, as well as teachers and parents.

• Thursday, 4th August. 5:30pm. Gravity, Dr David Simpson
• Thursday, 18th August, 5:30pm. The photon: a wave or a particle? or both? Prof Harry Quiney
• Thursday, 1st September, 5:30pm.  The Future of Optics with Prof Ann Roberts

Check here for more details and to book. Recordings of previous lectures are now available.
These are Covid-safe events. The lectures will be delivered to a live audience in the School of Physics. The lectures will also be live streamed. The Zoom link will be sent two days before the lecture.

c) Victorian Young Physicists' Tournament for students in Year 10 and 11

VYPT is back this year with a number of changes. For those not familiar with VYPT.  It is a competition for students in Years 10 and 11. During Terms 2 and 3, in teams of 3, the students experimentally investigate a common set of three topics, then on Saturday, 10th September in a series of one-on-one 30 minute contests with other teams, they describe their method, explain their findings, and question and challenge the presentations of others.

The closing date for registrations in 29th July.

For further details, there are four relevant webpages on the Vicphysics website:

• For general information,
• For teachers to register teams, along with advice on planning, including a promotional flyer and a link to the video of Physics Teachers' Conference workshop with a discussion among a panel of teachers who have participated before.
• For students, with guide questions, hints and links to useful resources.
• For University students, interested in being judges and mentors.

d)  Other Vicphysics Competitions

• Poster Competition for Unit 2 Practical Investigation   The Poster Competition is designed to award quality student work and to provide exemplars of quality investigations. Check this webpage.
• Physics Photo Contest For details click here
• Physics Video Contest For details click here.

e) Free AstroTours for Year 10 – 12 students

Swinburne's Hawthorn campus is offering free Astro Tours to school groups of students in Years 10 - 12.  The tours are hosted by a professional astronomer, students learn about astronomy using innovative virtual reality technologies developed by Swinburne's Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing.

Students will have the opportunity to ask questions, and discover the universe through movies, animations and simulations — all produced by the in-house team of astronomers, visualisation researchers, animators, artists and programmers.   Teachers are also invited to customise the AstroTour to suit the interests of their students. 

The session runs for 50 minutes and the venue can take 55 students. Click here for more details and to book.

f) New Scientist Festival of Ideas and Discoveries.  Weekend 8th and 9th October.  Online and On Demand
New Scientist is organising an event with over 50 speakers across four stages over two days.  The event can be viewed live (held during the day UK time) or viewed on demand for 12 months afterwards.
The four stages are: Universe, Mind and Body, Our Planet and Future, each with five 40 min presentations each day.
The Super Early Bird online price of 20 pounds gives you on demand to all talks for 12 months.

For more details of the speakers and to book click here.

g) Prof Brian Cox. Horizons: A 21st Century Space Odyssey, 7:30pm, 15th October
Venue: Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre
Cost: Full time students $56
To Book: click here

7. Events for Teachers
a) July Lectures in Physics: Fridays in July at the University of Melbourne

The theme of this year's series of lectures is 'Quantum Worlds: from the cosmos to future computing'. The remaining lectures are:

• Friday, 22nd July at 6:30pm: Quantum Chemistry: quantum effects in our everyday lives with Prof Katya Pas.  Click here to book and for details of the abstract, the speaker's bio and the venue.
• Friday, 29th July at 6:30pm: Thermonuclear quantum mechanics: the elusive promise of fusion with Prof David Jamieson.  This lecture is dedicated to the memory of Professor Tony Klein.  Click here to book and for details of the abstract, the speaker's bio and the venue.

Drinks and refreshments are provided before the lecture.

b)  Supporting out-of-field teachers of Physical Science
Vicphysics is preparing intensive PD for out-of-field year 7 - 10 science teachers. The first module will cover the teaching of forces and motion and will run after school for two hours per week from Thursday, 21st July to Thursday, 25th August.  The times will be 4:30pm to 6:30pm.  The venue is Kew High School.

c)  Lab Techs' Workshops on Years 7 - 10 Physics, 1st Dec, Camberwell Grammar School
The program of workshops for Lab Techs returns.  It will be on Thursday, 1st December and held again at Camberwell Grammar School.  The program includes:

• Learning new skills
• Setting up demonstrations
• Quick Tests on Equipment to see it is working or not plus a few hints on fixing stuff with Harvey Edwards from Principles and Practice
• Electronic data methods with Doug Bail from Ciderhouse, and
• Laboratory management hints

The cost is $70 and includes lunch.
For more information and to book click here.

d) EduTECH Conference and Expo, 10th - 11th August, Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre.
The event has over 300 speakers across 12 different conferences including: i) School leaders, ii) Teachers, iii) Digital Technologies, iv) ICT, v) Vocational Training as well as Apple, Microsoft and Google conferences.  There is also a large number of exhibitors.  Passes cost $300, discounts are available.  For details of the various conferences and speakers, please click here.

e) International Conference for Physics Education (ICPE 2022) 5th - 9th December
This year's conference will be an online conference based in Australia, Singapore and Indonesia, which mean it will be held in our time zone. 

It is an event for physics teachers both secondary and tertiary, teacher educators and teaching researchers.  As an online conference, the registration fee is quite low, $60 and $50 early bird.  Currently the program features many speakers including Dr Derek Muller with details of workshops to come.  

The conference proceedings will be available prior to the event so that you can decide which lectures and workshops to attend that fit around your working day.  Local academics are on the planning committee so there will be sessions relevant to Australian Physics Curricula.

For more details and to register, click here.

f) New Scientist Physics talks: Online and On demand
The magazine New Scientist has organised a series of talks on physics, titled The Big Thinkers.  They can be viewed live, but can also be viewed any time for 12 months. The last topic is:

• Space, Time and Motion, Sean Carroll, Caltech, Thurs 20th October

Individual tickets are available for 15 pounds.  Series tickets are available for 80 pounds and include these earlier lectures:

• A brief history of time keeping with Chad Orzel, author of 'How to teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog'
• Physics at the End of the Universe with Katie Mack
• What we don't know about Gravity with Claudia de Rham
• Reality+: from The Matrix to the Multiverse with David Chalmers
• The Origin of the Universe by Will Kinney, University of Buffalo,

8.   Physics News from the Web
Items selected from the bulletin of the Institute of Physics (UK).
Each item below includes the introductory paragraphs and a web link to the rest of the article.
a) Friction plays crucial role in how dominoes topple in waves
Destin Sandlin, host of the YouTube channel SmarterEveryDay, posted a video called “Dominoes – HARDCORE Mode” – where he used a high-speed camera to film a chain of toppling dominoes. He noticed that the speed of the resulting wavefront – which propagates as each domino falls and strikes its neighbour – was affected by the friction between the dominoes and the surface they were placed on.

On smooth, low-friction hardwood, each domino appeared to backslide as it fell – in contrast to high-friction felt, where the bottom of each domino largely stayed in place. On low-friction hardwood, a domino struck its neighbour further down, slightly lowering the speed of the wavefront. Yet under the limitations of his experiment, Sandlin soon realised that problem was far more complex than he had anticipated.

In a new study, Cantor and Wojtacki delved further into the problem by simulating the toppling of 200 evenly spaced dominoes. Across 1210 simulations, they examined a wide range of spacings between dominoes, while also varying surface friction, and the friction between neighbouring dominoes.

b) IUPAP 100 PHOTO CONTEST A contest to celebrate the beauty of physics and the fun that can be encountered in its practice.
There were 12 prize winners and honourable mentions.  For each photograph there is a paragraph about the image as well as a link to view the photograph.  Impressive ones are 'Foldscope - a revolutionary microscope',  'A Room full of Physics' and 'Surface Tension'.

c) Quantum theory of consciousness put in doubt by underground experiment - Research by Dr Catalina Curceanu
Some teachers may remember Dr Catalina Curceanu as the speaker at our first Girls in Physics Breakfast in Hawthorn and her talks to students in other years.
A controversial theory put forward by physicist Roger Penrose and anaesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff that posits consciousness to be a fundamentally quantum-mechanical phenomenon has been challenged by research looking at the role of gravity in the collapse of quantum wavefunctions. Based on results from an experiment done under Gran Sasso mountain in Italy conducted by Dr Catalina Curceanu, the new work concludes that Penrose’s and Hameroff’s Orchestrated Objective Reduction theory (Orch OR) is “highly implausible” when based on the simplest type of gravity-related wavefunction collapse – although they point out that more complex collapse models leave some wiggle room.
There is also an interview with Catalina about this research.in another magazine.