This year’s National Science Week saw Science Nation bring their acclaimed ‘Battle of the Brains’ comedy quiz to Perth, testing the best of Perth’s Physics brains across theorems, audience charades and even the Greek alphabet.
Competing in Perth for all the glory physics has to offer were:
- cosmic cartographer, galactic fossil hunter, time travelling evolutionary astrophysicist, and avid Welsh rugby fan Dr Luke Davies;
- molecular geneticist, science communicator and virtual reality wizz Karina Price;
- astronomer, X-ray visionary, and Guardians of the Galaxy rejectee Ryan Urquhart;
- radio astronomer and pineapplephobic Ronniy Joseph;
- black hole wrangler, radio jockey and adrenaline junkie Pikky Atri;
- astrophysics L-plater and high functioning coffee-addict Robin Cook;
- and all hosted by physicist, science communicator and Science Nation founder Dr Andrew Stephenson.
Sponsored by ICRAR and Systemic, the evening featured lots of laughs, both with and at our talented panels.
If you can catch a Battle of the Brains near you next National Science Week we highly recommend it!
The battle is on! Which Physics team will reign supreme on the battle of the brains stage in Perth?
From Left: Dr Luke Davies, Karina Price, Ryan Urquhart, host Dr Andrew Stephenson, Ronnie Joseph, Pikky Atri and Robin Cook.
Contentious signs were seen in the audience…
The biologist on the panel was not impressed! (Karina Price from the ARC CoE for Plant Energy Biology had good humour with the tough physics questions throughout!)
We’re ready to kick off the battle, teams are introduced and everyone is raring to go.
A full-room game of ‘heads or tails’ with true or false physics statements. Panel only got points if they beat the entire audience. They did not…
Thinking hard about a crucial true or false.
Dr Andrew Stephenson kept the teams (mostly) on track and brought the tough questions out.
How do you manage to lipread ‘mitochondria’ whilst listening to Metallica? Answer: you don’t and you lose a point!
Turns out ‘vacuum’ is really hard to lipread and looks like something wholly inappropriate for a general audience!
Using audience members to charade ‘Schrödinger’s Wave Function’ to your team mates – entertaining for all!
Physicists don’t actually know the Greek alphabet all that well, well at least not the order!
But this team of PhD Candidates pulled out the stops and was almost 100%!
The winners (and not-so-winners) of Perth’s Battle of the Brains.
