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My PhD studies with Brian Vincent were concerned with the synthesis of electrically conductive latex particles based on polypyrrole and polyacetylene. I have continued to work in this fruitful field for the last twenty years (long after the funding dried up!) and in the last decade or so a rather esoteric application has been found for these fascinating particles. Due to their electrically conductive nature, polypyrrole-based particles can be accelerated up to hypervelocities (>1 km s−1) using a high-voltage Van de Graaff accelerator. In collaboration with space physicists at the University of Kent, UK (and more recently also in Germany and Japan) we have designed a range of polypyrrole-based particles containing various elements (C, Br, Si, S, etc.). Such particles are excellent mimics for understanding the behaviour of micrometeorites (also known as ‘cosmic dust’), which are typically travelling at hypervelocities through our solar system. Our results have implications for understanding some of the data being transmitted back to Earth by Cassini, an unmanned space probe that is currently orbiting Saturn and probing the chemical composition of the dust particles that comprise its rings. Thus this work typifies several aspects of Brian's long and illustrious career: fundamental science, interesting and unexpected applications, informal (and international) collaborations with scientists in other disciplines and, most importantly, it has the great merit of being fun!

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