Film Crew at BioDIFF and DNS

29 July 2015

Lights, camera, action! On 30 June, this was heard echoing throughout the day in the Neutron Guide Hall West at the JCNS outstation in Garching. At JCNS’s request, a film crew from the Berlin company Tricklabor was busy recording scenes for two teaching videos.

The idea is to incorporate the videos into lectures in order to introduce the idea of neutron scattering as a valuable scientific method to students of physics early on in their studies. In doing so, the videos teach fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics, an important topic of the lectures in Bachelor degree courses in physics. Using neutron experiments as an aid to understanding makes it possible to present the subject clearly and descriptively. Both the first two films deal with the formation of Bragg peaks and illustrate the role of neutron spins in suppressing incoherent scattering. In addition, the films both offer an insight into current research at JCNS.

Filming took place over the entire day. The leading roles were of course taken over by the JCNS scattering instruments, DNS and BioDIFF, while other parts were played by the instrument team leaders, Dr. Sultan Demirdis and Dr. Tobias Schrader. For the time being, the real stars remained invisible: the neutrons. They will be inserted right at the end into the finished product using animation techniques.

It is expected that the videos will be ready in the autumn, when they will be also be available online.