Bath alumnus Christopher Orr credits his love for physics to growing up in a practically minded family and in the age of thrilling scientific endeavours including the Apollo 11 mission. While maths was never quite his thing, Christopher soon realised he had a love for the logic and predictability of physics.
After a visit to the University of Bath campus, with the cherry blossom in bloom, Christopher soon realised that Bath was the place to pursue his physics studies.
Read on to hear about Christopher’s inspiring placement experience and where his love for physics took him after graduation.
Why did you choose to study at Bath?
My physics journey began at school with an inspirational physics teacher I had during sixth form. I lived in an industrial area of Manchester and was only the second person in my family to approach further education and attend university. I wanted the working experiences offered by a university-based sandwich course but my applied physics choices were all universities in industrial northern towns – with the exception of Bath.
My interview at Bath was a dream – the cherry blossom was out, the town looked fabulous bathed in sunshine and my interview with Dr J.D. Swift to join his small physics department went well. I was hooked – all I had to do now was get those A-level grades.
Did you have a particular career in mind when you chose your course?
I can’t honestly say that I had a career in mind other than I wanted to be a practical physicist (as opposed to a theoretical physicist). My father was a very practical man (having little money) who routinely repaired things – especially the rather old cars he owned which seemed to need constant mechanical attention. I guess I picked up a love of being practical from him. I always struggled with maths but adored physics and the logic and predictability of things around us. This was the age of Apollo 11 (and men going to the moon), nuclear power and the Concorde, so exciting science was everywhere.
Can you tell us about your experience of studying here?
I studied physics at Bath from September 1970 to 1974. The experience of being in Dr J.D Swift’s small year group was excellent. I didn’t love everything, of course (oh, that thermodynamics!) but with the help of excellent lecturers I really began to expand my physics knowledge into areas such as optics, crystallography and nuclear. This latter subject was held in a building close to the University’s lake (the building is no longer there). Nuclear physics was becoming a firm favourite.
I lodged in a guest house at 16 Russell Street with 12 university guys. The student house was brilliantly managed by a former wrestler, John Taylor, and his wife, Mary. Nobody argued with them! Initially I regretted not getting into halls of residence but this location, close to Milsom St, the Circus and the Royal Crescent, was amazing. I made lifelong friends with guys at university and in this house.
You took part in a placement, can you talk a bit about that experience?
I took part in two, six-month placements. The first was at the Daresbury Laboratory near Warrington and the second at the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria. Daresbury was an electron synchrotron (called NINA) at the time, and I worked on multi-wire proportional chambers that tracked the ‘near speed of light’ NINA electron beam. Interesting, but this confirmed that high-energy physics wasn’t for me.
My second placement at Sellafield confirmed my love for nuclear physics. Back then, the plant serviced both civil and military needs, and as part of a small radiometric physics team I became involved in many of the technical challenges of nuclear fuels and wastes – much of it is Sellafield’s legacy. The use of emitted radiation to prevent criticality [the occurrence of a self-sustaining neutron chain reaction], control plant processes, meet regulatory requirements for waste disposal and ensure personnel safety were all part of this placement.
How did your studies help you to develop, professionally and/or personally?
Studying physics at Bath laid the foundations for my career in the UK’s nuclear industry. Clearly, the nuclear course was a good starting point, but so many of the different physics courses I studied at Bath helped at some point in my career with the range of challenges I faced – even thermodynamics! I joined the Institute of Physics and eventually became a Chartered Physicist. In an unexpected way, and much later in my career, this really helped as I was working with a team who needed to bid for nuclear instrumentation and development programmes. My C.Phys. provided the credibility required to win work.
Since retiring I’ve worked as a consultant to a US company who have customers across the world – primarily to pass on a lifetime of knowledge and experience to younger physicists, to meet up with old colleagues and friends from 40 years in the industry and, of course, for the money!
Describe your career journey since graduating.
Following graduation, I accepted a role as Technical Officer at Sellafield, leading a small radiometric physics team in developing some truly ground-breaking developments. Fundamentally we used the information locked up in ‘radiation’ to achieve goals. For example, the unique ‘fingerprint’ of gamma energies from fission product/activation product/fissile and fertile radionuclides gave valuable information on both nuclide identification, location and its activity – and in some cases the intermediate shielding. My team looked at alpha, X-ray, gamma, neutron (passive and active) and even muon radiations to solve plant problems.
As nuclear plants world-wide had similar challenges to Sellafield, I eventually joined a team that provided international support. This took me to the USA, Canada, Argentina, Germany, Norway, Luxembourg, France, South Korea, China and Japan. Cultures and languages were very different, but the science remained the same – and I was defining physics-based solutions to many of their challenges. I retired in 2011.
What advice would you give to prospective students thinking about studying your course at Bath?
This is a difficult question, but from my experience I would suggest the following advice:
- All challenges are opportunities – so be bold and accept them.
- Please don’t assume you know it all. You will continue to learn for your whole life so get to know the truly knowledgeable and experienced people around you. I’m still learning over 50 years since graduating.
- Don’t worry too much if things don’t work out – that experience is valuable too.
- Even the best maths models aren’t always good predictors of outcomes so keep an open mind and don’t assume your answers are perfect. If at all possible, carry out confirmatory (practical) checks or tests.
- Understand where the errors lie – and how big they may be. I once read a joke that a man with his head in an oven and his derriere in a freezer on average feels fine!
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