I go to many schools, talk to many students and their parents. I'm often asked what job will I get if I study Physics. I explain: if you study Medicine, you become a doctor, if you study engineering you become an engineer, if you study law, you become unemployed! But, if you study Physics you can do anything.

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Today I will tell you how our fundamental physics research is going to help cure cancer. I've recently come back from my first medical physics conference on a new cancer treatment called proton therapy. It turns out that if protons are used to bombard cancer, they will deposit all of their destructive energy just at the cancer, with no side-effects unlike conventional radiation therapy, but only if we get the calculations just right. These calculations are particularly difficult and only we have the technology to get them right because this is the same fundamental physics that we use for fusion energy, study of antimatter, and charge-exchange processes in space. We can now add cancer therapy to the list of applications of our theoretical physics research.

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With this book prize, for the top year-11 Physics student, I am hoping to attract more students to study Physics and Mathematics, at the highest level, and then succeed on the world stage. The book is entitled "A Universe from nothing", written by theoretical physicist Professor Lawrence Krauss. It gives me great pleasure to award this prize, which has a personalised dedication from Lawrence, to ...

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mailto: Igor Bray

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