Following my schooling at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Glantaf (a Welsh Language High School) in Llandaf, Cardiff. I attended Portsmouth University, where I studied for an Honours Degree in Applied Physics. The 4 year course included industrial placements at Van Leer BV in Mijdrecht, Holland for 9 months, where I was engaged in research mainly on microwave absorption, and at Crystran, then part of BDH Limited in Poole, Dorset for 4 months, where I worked on Crystal Spectrometers for X-ray and Gamma ray detection, in Particle Physics, Space and Industrial applications.
The subjects studied included:
Computational Physics, Wave Mechanics, Quantum Mechanics, Nuclear Physics, Materials Science, Particle Physics, Telecommunications, Analogue & Digital Electronics, Design & Manufacture, Mechanics, Atomic Physics, Electromagnetic Theory, Thermodynamics, Dynamics, Fluid Dynamics, Optics, Solid State Physics, X-ray Physics, Mathematics, Vacuum Physics, Statistical Mechanics, Logic, Metaphysics, Special Relativity, Chemistry.
The final year options which I specialised in were:
My honours thesis in my final year was titled "A Causal Interpretation of a Quantum Harmonic Oscillator", and used Hidden Variable Theory, to model particle trajectories in a Quantum Harmonic Oscillator. The theory was developed using standard mathematical techniques in conjunction with quantum mechanics. The result was a modified Schrodinger equation which included an extra term called the quantum "potential". Software was then written to validate the mathematical theory, using numerical simulation techniques which could be used on UNIX workstations and PCs. My supervisors were Mr G. Horton and Dr C. Dewdney.
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Richard Osborne, 1995-1998.