QUIRK+ is an annual intercollegiate event where Physics students from participating Universities attend talks held by their peers.
This year, the first part of the second annual QUIRK+ was hosted at King’s College London (KCL) on 31 January 2026. The second part took place on 14 Feburary 2026, at Cambridge.
The event is organised by the University of Cambridge, KCL, Queen Mary’s University London (QMUL), University College London (UCL), Imperial, Royal Holloway, Surrey, Southampton, Bath, Oxford University, Swiss Federal Technology Institute of Lausanne (EPFL) and Technical University of Munich (TUM).
The day started with a 9 am talk from Dr Eleni-Alexandra Kontou on the possibility of wormholes existing. The talk was immediately revealed to be very student-friendly, with explanations of mathematics which first or second year students may not have encountered.
Dr Eleni-Alexandra described the differences between different types of potential wormholes and the qualities of each. It was concluded that mathematically, wormholes may be possible, but a little further research is required to get there.
Matter tells spacetime how to curve, and spacetime tells matter how to move
John Archibald Wheeler, quoted by Dr Eleni-Alexandra Kontou
The following talks were led by Undergraduates and Postgraduates from participating Universities.
They ranged from ‘The Physics of Coffee’ from a Postgraduate student at Imperial, to gravitational waves and boson stars from a research assistant at the University of Cambridge to an explanation of imaginary numbers from an Undergraduate student at KCL.
Roar‘s former Science Editor, Jana Bazeed (current President of KCL’s Maxwell Society) held an intriguing talk on the philosophy of general relativity.
It was wonderful to see so many physics students from all over the country under one roof! The committees have all been working so hard over the past few months to prepare the conference, and I’m proud to say it was a great success. Many thanks to all the organisers, speakers and attendees for making it happen, and I’m sure part II at Cambridge will be a blast too!
Jana Bazeed, President of KCL Maxwell Society, fourth-year Physics & Philosophy student at King’s College London
The wide range of topics to talk about seemed endless, with a total of 37 talks throughout the day and closing remarks from the Institute of Physics.
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