![[IOP]](http://images.iop.org/cws/icons/themes/phw/colophon-small.png){kind=icon}
Tag archives: people
A black-belt physicist
Julie McGavigan, expert in physics and karate.
By Michael Banks
Not many school pupils can boast having had a world-champion physics teacher, so say hello to Julie McGavigan, who teaches physics at Eastwood High School near Glasgow and bagged a gold medal at the World Karate Championships in Denmark in October.
The 27 year old, who says the win in Denmark came as “quite a shock”, is a 3rd Dan in Shotokan karate and has taught physics for five years after studying the subject at the University of Glasgow.
McGavigan also teaches karate at evening classes at Eastwood High, where she puts physics principles to good use. “Physics helps me understand why certain stances, moves and combinations work when practising karate,” McGavigan told physicsworld.com.
View all posts by this author | View this author's profile
Paul Frampton: the movie
By Matin Durrani
The strange story of physicist Paul Frampton could be made into a film.
The story of Paul Frampton is so incredible that it’s hard to believe it really happened. How could anyone have been so foolish and left his family, colleagues and students in the lurch?
In case you don’t remember, Frampton is the 69-year-old British-born US-based theoretical physicist who in early 2012 travelled to Bolivia expecting to meet a 32-year-old woman he’d struck up a correspondence with on the Internet, who claimed to be the Czech-born lingerie model Denise Milani.
But when he arrived in Bolivia, Milani was nowhere to be seen and Frampton was instead met by a man who asked him to take what was supposedly Milani’s suitcase to Buenos Aires, where she would then meet him.
When Milani didn’t show up at Buenos Aires Airport either – and there has been no suggestion that she knew that her identity was being used – Frampton tried to board a plane back to the US but was arrested after airport-security officials discovered 2 kg of cocaine in his checked luggage. Although he insisted the drugs were not his, Frampton was sentenced in November 2012 to 56 months in jail, despite a campaign by physicists to clear his name.
View all posts by this author | View this author's profile
The joke’s on Chu
Caught on camera. (Courtesy: The Onion)
By Michael Banks
With Steven Chu nearing towards his final days in office as US energy secretary we couldn’t help but highlight a recent spoof of the Nobel laureate in the satirical The Onion magazine.
The Onion may have recently duped China’s People’s Daily newspaper into thinking that North Korea’s leader had been voted the sexiest man alive in 2012, but the magazine failed to fool people that the spoof of Chu was true.
View all posts by this author | View this author's profile
