Caitlin Thurn

Oh, thanks so much for having me.

Oh, I mean, honestly, all of the physics I'm learning, I'm still a lowly second year undergrad, so nothing compared to the good grant here.

But it's really wonderful to just start exploring the magic of how physics works and how the universe works.

uh doing quantum at the end of last term was beautiful because it was the first little taste of the real mathematics that underpins that understanding yeah and getting to understand how much of it is feels like absolute magic and just a statistical basis for how we understand the universe to work rather than being the classical world one would expect

to live in where if you throw a tennis ball, it's going to do exactly what you told it to.

And it was really fascinating and good fun to start dipping my toe into exploring that world.

Yeah, I will admit it's one of my absolute joys.

There's such a strong community and connection there.

And it's the kind of place where you're just never alone, no matter what you need to do, no matter if it's digging holes in the rain or running up and down in circles in the bush, you're just never alone, which is really, really beautiful to see.

For that role I've been in the reserves for about six or seven years now and combat engineering boils down to three main things.

It's find it, build it or blow it up.

So yeah, all the high risk search that all the photographs were coming out of Afghanistan, Iraq back in the 2000s, that was all combat engineering skill set that we train in now.

um as well as basic construction and all the kind of uh supportive work if you were to go into after a natural disaster or something we often get pulled to help with the ses on that front in australia as well um and then explosives is the other tool of the trade which is just excellently good fun sitting in sitting in a bunker having everything rigged up

sitting there eating snakes, waiting for them to make sure the head counts good before you hit the button and it starts.

The world ends behind you.

Well, I will admit I've got a broad kind of knowledge base from neuroscience at the University of Melbourne, now doing physics and maths at UCEDD plus that military connection.

Honestly, just things in understanding of...

How your mind works, that's something I can help people to understand a little bit better.

Physics as well, I've got certainly a capability to answer questions there, although the absolute technicality I will, of course, pass to the good grant.

Yeah, just I'm happy to answer any curiosities about the military, but I will admit I am not anyone in PR for them, so...