A professor born and bred in Cornwall has gone around the world in 39 days to promote the importance of physics.

Professor Roy Sambles carried out a whistle-stop tour of universities and research centres in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

He said: ‘The temperature contrast between a New Zealand summer and an Ottawa winter was a bit of a body shock!’

The professor of physics at Exeter University delivered a packed schedule of lectures on a variety of topics.

And he actually lived one day twice – he left New Zealand at 3pm and arrived at 12.15pm, on the same date, in Vancouver, Canada, after he crossed the International Date Line.

Roy, who was born in East Cornwall and went to St Dominic Primary School and Callington School, is president of the Institute of Physics in the UK and Ireland.