Two hundred and fifty rowdy secondary students packed into Gleeson Hall at Dublin Institute of Technology yesterday to hear an entertaining and often graphic presentation, The Human Body - The Ultimate Physics Laboratory, given by Dr Kevin McGuigan of the Royal College of Surgeons as part of Science Week 2004.
The secondary school classes from all over the Republic, laughed early and often as Dr McGuigan spent the hour humorously explaining how the laws of physics have practical, everyday implications for the human body.
Dr Siobhán Daly, assistant head of the school of physics at DIT and organiser of the event, said the goal of the presentation was primarily to make physics fun for the students.
"Now I pray I never get kidney stones," said one member of the audience referring to Dr McGuigan's uncomfortable description of the passing of stones for men and the relevant physics used to eliminate them inside the body.
"I found junior level science boring, but this was very interesting," said Saul Bowman (16), of Sandford Park School. "Now, I think it's something I might actually want to do." According to Dr Daly, that's the exact response McGuigan's speech hoped to garner among the secondary students entering the senior level and based on the response to this year's event she was hopeful for the future.