Public Lecture Series

A quasicrystal is an exotic state of matter with symmetries once thought to be impossible for matter. The concept was first introduced and the first examples were synthesized in the laboratory thirty years ago, but could Nature have beaten us to the punch? This talk will describe the search for the first natural quasicrystal, An adventure to the ends of the Earth and beyond and one of the wildest scientific stories you are ever likely to hear.

Gravitational waves are "ripples of space-time" that were predicted by Einstein's theory of General Relativity almost a century ago.  The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) now pushes the frontiers of science and engineering to try and catch these waves for the first time.  This will allow us to explore the last dance of pairs of neutron stars colliding to give birth to a black hole and other astrophysical events in a way humans never have before.  Dr. Gonzalez will describe how a worldwide community of scientists is working to open a new window to the Universe searching for Einstein's gravitational waves.

Apart from Einstein, Paul Dirac was probably the greatest theoretical physicist of the twentieth century. Dirac, co-inventor of the most revolutionary theory for 150 years 'quantum mechanics' is now best known for conceiving of anti-matter in his head and also for his deeply eccentric behaviour. For him, the most important attribute of a fundamental theory was its mathematical beauty, an idea that he said was 'almost a religion' to him. In this talk, Farmelo will argue that this obsession originated in his early life and training as an engineer and mathematician. An examination of Dirac's character will show why he was sometimes called 'the strangest man' in the modern history of physics.