Director of the Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Engineering from University of Macau, Prof Tang Zikang was the honoured speaker at the High Table Dinner that was hosted by the Division of Science and Technology (DST) for year one students on 19 October.
Prof Tang spoke of ‘Heat, entropy, and the laws of thermodynamics in life’. He emphasised the relationship between time and the Second Law of thermodynamics, which included important discoveries such as the caloric theory of heat and the foundations of modern thermodynamics and the molecular dynamics.
High Table Dinner guests
He also mentioned the history of the discoveries of the above three theories as well as giving some examples to help students better understand them.
In addition to theoretical knowledge, Prof Tang also discussed some of the questions that may arise, for example, how to get absolute zero is the ultimate limit of cold and defined as 0 K on the Kelvin scale.
During the question and answer session, a student from the Environmental Science programme asked how and why six laser rods can fix an atom. While responding to the question, Prof Tang said there were six directions in a stereoscopic space, and the atom cannot be removed if the directions are all blocked.
The speech ended with a violin and piano duet performed by Ma Qianqi and Ou Yuzhen, and then the dinner began. The night ended with a toast by the honoured guests.
Reporter: Yin Lanjing (IJ, Y3)
Edittors: Deen He, Samuel Burgess, Marissa Furney, Étienne Fermie
(from MPRO)
