Replay: A tour of the Cavendish's new home with Andy Parker

People doing Physics

The team is taking a short break this summer and will be back in September with a plethora of new guests. To help you wait, we’ve selected a couple of previous episodes we wanted to share again with you.

This month, we go back to the Ray Dolby Centre for a tour of what was, at the time of recording in January 2023, still very much a building site. A year and a bit later, the newest home of the Cavendish Laboratory is now completed and we’re gearing up for the migration of 1,100 staff and students, along with research and teaching labs, scientific equipment, and technical instruments.

Let’s jump back in with our guest Andy Parker, who was the Head of the Cavendish at the time, for a wander around the new building and a fantastic chat about inventions, reinventions, and the future of physics.

We hope you’ll like it and if you do, don’t forget to rate the episode or to leave us a review on your favourite podcast app!

Episode 13: A tour of the Cavendish's new home with Andy Parker

This is episode 13 of People Doing Physics, the podcast from the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. This month marks our first birthday! One year, 12 guests, each one looking into their very own journey and connection with Physics.

For this special anniversary episode, we’ve asked the head of the Cavendish Laboratory, Professor Andy Parker to take us to a building site. Not any building site though. The one, just across the road from the department’s current location, where the newest home for the Cavendish Laboratory will open in 2024.

A Professor of High Energy Physics, Andy joined the Cavendish as a lecturer in 1989. He served as Deputy Head of Department for 3 years before becoming Head of Department in 2013.

Who better than Andy then, who has overseen this immense project for the best part of the past 10 years, to show us around and talk about what the new building means for the future of physics in Cambridge and nationally?

With him we wandered and we roamed and we talked: about particle physics, ever bigger underground tunnels, and a lost spring on the carpet.

Useful links

• Learn more about the Ray Dolby Centre and about the relationship between Ray Dolby at the Cavendish.
• Explore the world of CERN, the Large Hadron Collider and the ATLAS inner detector.
• To learn more about the Cavendish Laboratory, or if you are interested in joining us or studying with us, go to www.phy.cam.ac.uk

Share and join the conversation

• If you like this episode don’t forget to rate it and leave a review on your favourite podcast app. It really helps others to find us.
• Any comment about the podcast or question you would like to ask our physicists, email us at [e-mail] or join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #PeopleDoingPhysics.

Episode credits

• Hosts: Jacob Butler and Vanessa Bismuth
• Recording and Editing: Chris Brock

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