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School of Physical and Chemical Sciences

Professor Peter Kalmus

Peter

OBE, Emeritus Professor of Physics

Email: p.i.p.kalmus@qmul.ac.uk
Telephone: 020 7882 6168
Room Number: G. O. Jones Building, Room 231
Website: http://hepwww.ph.qmul.ac.uk/~pipk/

Profile

Scientific Societies

1963-              Member American Physical Society

1967-              Fellow Institute of Physics

1989-1993    Chair IOP High Energy Particle Physics Group

1993-2000     IOP Council Member

1996-2000     IOP Vice President

1993-1998     European Physical Society High Energy Physics Board

1986-              Member British Science Association (BSA)

1990-1991     President Physics Section BSA

1990-1992     Council Member BSA

1989-               Member Royal Institution (RI)

1996-1999      Council Member RI

1997-1999      Vice President RI

1997-1999      Chair Davy Farady Research Lab Committee RI

2003-                IOP Publishing Science Advice Committee

2005-2009      Chair IOP London and South East Branch

 

 

Teaching

My teaching

2011-2012  Synoptic Physics tutorials.

Previously  I have given many undergraduate courses, but also some courses at A-level, at postgraduate level, and at CERN international Summer School.

 

Research

Research Interests:

My research interests

I am Emeritus Professor of Physics.  I was Head of Department from 1992 to 1997.  Here is a brief summary of my research interests 1954 to 1998.

Accelerator design and construction. Detector instrumentation. Particle beam design. Particle physics experiments at Argonne , Rutherford Lab, CERN and DESY. Proton, pion, kaon and antiproton scattering on nucleons in the GeV region: differential cross sections and polarisation. Discovery of new mesons and baryons.

Contributions to the design and construction of  of the UA1 detector for the CERN proton-antiproton collider. Proton-antiproton collisions at 540 GeV and 630 GeV centre of mass energies. Electroweak unification: discovery of the W and Z bosons and determination of their properties.  Particle production and searches.  Tests of the standard model.

Design and construction of detector equipment for use at the HERA proton-electron collider at DESY.  Proton-electron and proton-positron collisions. Photoproduction. Deep inelastic scattering providing information on the quarks and gluon structure of the proton.  Searches for leptoquarks and other exotic particles.

 

Publications

My publications

About 230 papers on particle physics and instrumentation 1954 -1998

Performance

My Outreach Activities

Since 1957 have given numerous talks on physics to schools and other audiences (age range 14 to 80+),  in Europe, Africa and Asia but mostly in the UK.

Since my notional retirement have given about 240 talks to a total audience of 30,000 people.

Published about 30 articles explaining or reviewing aspects of physics to schools or to non-specialised or general readers.

Contributed to numeous short radio science broadcasts and a few appearances on TV

Initiated and organised "Sixth form Conferences" for the Royal Institution, soime given at Queen Mary

President of Physics Section of British Science Association in 1991, and on its Council for several years.

1998-1999 Gave Institute of Physics (IOP) Schools' Lecture "Particles and the Universe" with experimental demonstrations 43 times in England, Scotland, Wales and Channel Islands.

2000  Associate Editor of Science Spectra magazine.

2000  Invited by South African Institute of Physics to give versions of the above talk at 15 venues.

2001  Invited by Indian Physics Association to give "Cockcroft and Walton" Lectures " . Nine lectures at various levelsin New Delhi, Calcutta, Bangalore and Mumbai.

2003-2005  Represented UK on international steering group for World Year of Physics.

2004   Invited by British Council to give 15 lectures in India (in New Delhi, Calcutta, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Mumbai).

Judged schools' science projects at Big Bang events in Hatfield, Reading, London, Duxford, Birmingham

 

 

 

Grants

Honours and Awards

1967    Fellow of the Institute of Physics (FInstP)

1988    IOP Rutherford Medal (Jointly with John Dowell)

1995    Fellow of American Physical Society

2001    Honorary Fellow of University College London

2001    OBE for "Services to Physics"

2002    IOP Kelvin Medal

2002    Honorary Fellow British Science Association

2003    Honorary Fellow Queen Mary, University of London

2005    EPS Particle Physics Outreach Prize (Jointly with Dave Barney)

2010    IOP Branches Prize 

2010    Honorary Fellow Institute of Physics

 

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