RECORDER REPORT

LAHORE: Beating all the odds, a 17-year old boy, Shaheer Niazi, has stunned the scientists all over the world by re-examining the electric honeycomb phenomenon. Niazi having the privilege to get his paper published in the Royal Society Open Science Journal, will be known to the physicists for the decades. The phenomenon gets its name from the honeycomb structure that appears on top of the surface of a thin layer of oil.

An electronic honeycomb is “what happens when certain kinds of electrically charged particles travel between a pointy electrode and a flat one but bump into a puddle of oil along the way,” the NYT said.

“It’s what happens as natural forces work to keep an electric charge moving in an interrupted circuit.”

Presenting his work as any professional scientist would, Niazi, provided photographic evidence of charged ions creating the honeycomb, the NYT added. Presenting his work as any professional scientist would, Niazi provided photographic evidence of charged ions creating the honeycomb, the NYT added.

It was not the phenomenon itself that got Niazi noticed, but in fact it was his innovative way of looking at it and recording it. Niazi actually captured the movements of the ions bombarding the surface of the oil, much like as he likes to describe it “lightening hitting the surface of the earth.”

He was also able to record the amount of heat generated at the surface of the oil, something no scientist in the world has ever done before.

Similarly Dr Pérez Izquierdo was puzzled to see the thermal images. Neither he nor others had previously explored temperature changes on the oil’s surface, and he would have expected a smaller and more even heating effect than Niazi observed.

Determining the heat’s origin is an interesting question that requires more study, Dr Pérez Izquierdo said.

Dr Sabieh Anwer from Lahore university of Management Sciences (LUMS) was all praise for Shaheer’s work. His website www.physlab.org carries the stories of all the team members who prepared for the tournament over three months and worked on solutions to “mind-baffling physical phenomena” including: electric honeycombs, hot water geysers, rollers on rollers, magnetic trains, ultra-hydrophobic water, acoustic metamaterials and mechanical machines to generate random numbers.

On the occasion of his journey of research he said, “I conducted my research at LUMS, where the department head Dr Sabieh Anwar was extremely helpful, offering me full use of his physics lab, including sophisticated equipment. Although there aren’t many labs in Pakistan but LUMS has completely equipped lab which was a blessing for me.”

In 2016, Shaheer Niazi, as one of the first Pakistani participants in the International Young Physicists’ Tournament, had replicated the phenomenon and presented his work as any professional scientist would. Niazi was part of a team of four that went to attend the International Young Physicists’ Tournament, held in Russia in 2016.

The team, representing Pakistan for the first time at the International Young Physicists’ Tournament, was given the electric honeycomb phenomenon to present on. Shaheer’s twin sister, Khadija Niazi, was the team captain. He decided to write a paper on his findings but little did he realize what an arduous process it would be to make it publishable.

After making the breakthrough, Niazi thought he should not let his research go to waste and get it published. He received an acceptance letter for his paper shortly before his birthday last month. His sister Khadija Niazi got her paper published in the journal, NRC Research Press, a division of Canadian Science Publishing last year. Her paper, based on, solving core issues of early physics education in Pakistan addresses the problem of paucity of women interested in careers in pure physics and sciences, while discussing novel ways to reach a wider audience.

Niazi also hopes to further explore the mathematics of the electric honeycomb, he is now aiming to win the prestigious Nobel Prize again for Pakistan, and is looking to continue his work at a top university, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). When asked if he would like to study in Pakistan, he said if he does it will probably at a research oriented university, such as Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).