Nick Dickens | Nicholas Harrigan | Philip Jess | Caroline Johnson
Marieke Navin | Jan Schnupp | Peter Zeidman | Reserves
Nicholas is a postgraduate student in Quantum Optics at Imperial College, London. Nicholas, originally from Bromsgrove, Birmingham, impressed the judges with a humorous take on Spiderman's ability to climb walls. After fooling the judges into thinking they were about to be attacked by a jumping spider - it was only plastic - Nicholas went on to describe how spiders can stick to surfaces and climb vertical walls.
How did you come up with your chosen subject matter at the FameLab heats?
I love Spiderman and have done since I was very, very small. I think that I’ll probably have the Spiderman TV theme played at my funeral. Finding out that science might one day enable me to do the things that make Spiderman my hero (such as climbing walls) is pure awesome, and I wanted to share that with everyone.
Did your presentation go according to plan?
I’m not sure, I can’t really remember it that well; my mind went a bit blank! I do remember that I came off the stage without any serious injuries, so it couldn’t have gone too far wrong.
Please tell us what you feel your key skills are as a science communicator and why the public might respond well to you
I get really excited about how many crazy things there are going on in the universe, I guess that’s the closest thing I have to a skill. I can also do a pretty mean zombie impression. I think people like zombie impressions.
How did you get interested in science?
Since I was small I used to get really caught up with questions about how the world can be the way it is, and I’d get very confused about apparently simple things, like why things in the distance look smaller. It wasn’t until I was near the end of my GCSE’s that I finally realized that science and maths could help answer my questions. Naturally, Back to The Future also had a very large impact on my life. It should probably be in the national curriculum.
What do you do currently?
I’m a theoretical physics PhD student. Currently I’m trying to understand quantum mechanics, which is a description of the strange way that very small things behave. I also get to study how this strange behaviour of small things can be used to try and store information and build computers in ways not normally possible. Right now I’m trying to understand whether or not the moon is there when we don’t look at it (according to quantum mechanics the answer isn’t as simple as you might think…).
Why does science excite and inspire you?
The only thing that really, really freaks me out is the whole universe and the kind of things that go on all around us, which we normally take for granted, but are actually puzzles just waiting to be solved! Science gives us a method for trying to solve these puzzles (the best method we have). So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m into science because I love puzzles, as I think a lot of people do. So why do people love puzzles in the first place? I think that might be another puzzle in itself...
To date, what has been your most exciting scientific moment (other than being a FameLab finalist of course!)
There are so many that I really couldn’t say, but they tend to involve seeing scientific ideas in everyday things for the first time, and appreciating how easily nature can work out how to move things in really complicated ways. Like seeing vortex rings when I drip milk into my tea (milky equivalents of smoke rings), or watching the complicated patterns of leaves as they blow in the wind.
Who are your favourite science communicators and why?
Feynman would probably have to be my favourite science communicator, he always manages to show how science is dynamical and all around us, and has a way of making even the most complicated ideas seem clear and simple. As a kid my science hero was definitely Spiderman. In the comics his Spidey-powers would never be enough to beat his arch enemies and he’d always have to use his science knowledge to exploit some weakness of the baddy.
What are your ambitions for the future? Would winning FameLab have any impact on your plans?
Two of my main long-term ambitions are to be able to share my fascination with science with other people and to contribute towards science education both in the UK and further a-field (especially in developing countries). I also hope to be able to continue answering the questions I have about the universe by staying in science research. Precisely which area of science will depend on what questions I have! I’d also like to start a rock band, and then start a tribute band to my rock band, and then ditch the original band and just continue with the tribute band. I’m not quite sure how Famelab would change these plans. I’d go with the flow!
Audio: 
Video: