December 2015
Kent • Tuesday 1 December 7.30 p.m.
John von Neumann (1903–1957): a biographical film
This is a biographical film on the life and work of John von Neumann. It is concerned with
his contributions to physics, mathematics, computing, economics, the brain, and the
Manhattan Project. There are interviews with Eugene Wigner, Hans Bethe, Edward Teller,
Stanislaw Ulam, Herman Goldstein, Paul Halmos and Oskar Morgenstern.
London • Wednesday 2 December 6.30 p.m. • Dr Frances Saunders
The challenge of translating research into economic impact
Everyone knows that the UK leads the world in research.
Successive governments have looked at how to translate
this extraordinary wealth into financial wealth by creating
new business or making existing business more competitive.
Dr Saunders hopes to stimulate debate about why
translational research is important and how to make sure that
great science does not just sit on the shelf, waiting for others
to lift it off and gain benefits that should be ours.
Herts • Lindop Building • Wednesday 2 December 7.00 p.m. • Jerry Stone FBIS
Is Pluto a planet?
The amazing fly-by of Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft has not resolved one
particular question about our distant cousin – did the spacecraft encounter a planet?
Seven months after New Horizons was launched back in 2006, the International
Astronomical Union voted to re-classify Pluto as a dwarf planet, resulting in uproar
in the astronomical community and starting a controversy that still divides opinion
among astronomers and the general public alike. But does it need to? Jerry Stone
looks at the IAU definition of a planet and some of its unexpected – and unintended –
consequences, to provide a definitive answer. How many planets do we really have? Is it
eight, 21 or maybe only three?
Milton Keynes • Tues 8 December 7.30 p.m. • Professor Monica Grady
Landing on a comet
In November 2014, the world watched with great interest as
ESA became the first space agency to land a spacecraft on
a comet. As a member of the science support team for the
Ptolemy instrument, Monica Grady was at mission control
during the events surrounding the landing. In her talk she
gives a personal perspective of the Rosetta mission and
discusses what we have learnt from it so far.
London • Wednesday 16 December 6.30 p.m. • Professor Julia Yeomans
Nature’s engines: powering life
Active materials, such as bacteria and molecular motors, continuously create energy.
These are systems that naturally operate out of thermodynamic equilibrium and hence
provide a testing ground for theories of non-equilibrium statistical physics. They also
have potential as micro-machines, creating mechanical work from chemical energy and
suggesting the first steps towards building an artificial cell, or as swimming micro-robots
carrying payloads along blood vessels or through the soil.
January 2016
London • 7 January 2016 • LSE Branch & Retired Members Section
At home – a miscellany
Imperial College, London SW7 2AZ
For further details, see the LSE Branch Calendar
Information
All of our lectures are free to attend and last about an hour. There is usually
10–15 minutes afterwards for the audience to ask questions. School parties are most
welcome, but please register numbers beforehand with the relevant venue organiser
(see below). All venues are wheelchair accessible. Details herein are subject to possible
alteration – check branch websites. Any views expressed are not necessarily those of
the Institute of Physics.
Follow us
Twitter: @IOPLSE
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ioplse
Website: http://london.iop.org
Lecture-venue information and times
London
Lectures are usually held at 6.30 p.m., Franklin Room, Institute of Physics HQ,
80 Portland Place, London W1B 1NT. Refreshments are served from 6.00 p.m. on
the day of the lecture. Please register online to attend lectures. Any problems, e-mail
[email protected].
Berkshire Further lectures to be arranged. See website for details.
Lectures are held at 7.30 p.m. in the William Penney Theatre, Recreational Society, West
Gate, AWE, Aldermaston, Reading RG7 4PR. The theatre entrance can be found on
the A340 Basingstoke to Newbury road, just before the Heath End roundabout at Tadley.
Do not use the main gate entrance; the correct gate is signposted as the West Gate or
AWE Staff + Deliveries (picture of a lorry). E-mail [email protected]
for further information.
Herts
Lectures are usually held in the Lindop Building, University of Hertfordshire, College
Lane, Hatfield AL10 9AB. For further information on this season’s events, contact Diane
Crann, e-mail [email protected], tel 07770 444614.
Kent
Unless stated otherwise, lectures are held at 7.30 p.m. in Rutherford Lecture Theatre 1,
University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NZ. Further information can be obtained from
Dr Cyril Isenberg, e-mail [email protected], tel 01227 823768.
Milton Keynes
Lectures are held at 7.30 p.m. in the Berrill Lecture Theatre, Open University, Walton
Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA. There is no need to register. All inquiries to Prof Ray
Mackintosh, [email protected], tel 01908 652489.
London & South East Branch
Public Events – Autumn 2015
London and South East Lecture Programme
September 2015
Berks • Monday 14 September • Claire Murray
Diamond Light Source
Diamond Light Source (Diamond) is the UK’s national synchrotron science facility,
based in Oxfordshire. It speeds up electrons to near light speeds, producing a light 10
billion times brighter than the Sun. Scientists use this light to study a range of materials
from viruses to jet engines. On beamline I11 we use the light for diffraction experiments
to study very fast and very slow changes in powders. But what is diffraction? And what
does it tell us? Come along to learn about diffraction, beamline I11 and the science we
do at Diamond.
London • Wednesday 23 September 6.30 p.m. • Professor Carolin Crawford
Small bodies of the solar system
2015 has been a momentous year for the study of dwarf planets: the Dawn Mission is
in orbit around Ceres in the asteroid belt, and the New Horizons space probe flew past
Pluto and its moons in July. We shall discuss recent findings about both dwarf planets
and asteroids – the smaller bodies of the solar system.
October 2015
Kent • Tuesday 6 October 7.30 p.m. • Professor Mohamed Sobhy
The influence of science, technology and photography on art
Developments in science and technology have always
influenced art. From mathematics, artists learnt about
perspective; chemical processing gave affordable colours,
and colours previously not seen. Newton and Goethe’s work
on colour vision helped artists to understand colour. For
example, Turner and Mondrian applied Goethe’s theories.
Psychologists raised awareness of colour constancy and
adaptation, while photography showed stages of movements
not perceived by the eye, as seen in works by Duchamp and Picasso. Science and
technology itself can be subjects of art, be it in the laboratory or workshop. Mohamed
Sobhy will explain these ideas through examples of artwork from medieval times to the
present day.
London • Wednesday 7 October 7.30 p.m. • Professor David Berman
One hundred years of general relativity
A talk to celebrate 100 years of general relativity. In 1915, Einstein produced his
masterwork – general relativity. His theory of gravity, based on the bending of
space–time itself, is perhaps the single most impressive discovery in the history
of theoretical physics. This talk will describe the basic ideas and concepts behind
relativity and how, 100 years later, Einstein’s legacy lives on.
Herts • Prince Edward Hall • Wednesday 7 October 7.00 p.m.
• Professor Timothy Leighton
Bubble acoustics: from whales to other worlds
Gas bubbles in liquids have an extraordinary ability to interact with sound. Bubbles
generate the song of the babbling brook and ocean sounds that help us to understand
the global carbon budget. Bubbles activated by ultrasound can assist industrial
processing, aid medical diagnosis and therapy, or the design of probes for other worlds.
Professor Leighton will cover these phenomena.
Milton Keynes • Tuesday 13 October 7.30 p.m. • Professor Bob Newport
Glass: a look inside
Making glass is one of our oldest technologies, refined
and developed through the millennia and having an impact
in all aspects of modern life. From its deceptively simple
beginnings, glass has found a place in art and technology:
a material of beauty as well as utility. In our current century,
glassy materials may be used as smart drug-delivery
systems and even as scaffolds for regenerating a patient’s
lost bone. In his talk ,Bob Newport will try to unravel some
of the science behind glass and reveal aspects of modern research into its atomic-scale
properties.
Kent • Tuesday 20 October 7.30 p.m. • Ms Rachel Billinge
On closer examination… What scientific study can add to our understanding
of Old Master paintings
The National Gallery has employed numerous scientific techniques to study the
paintings in the collection since the establishment of a Scientific Department in
1946. This talk will look at some of those currently in use, focusing on imaging
techniques from across the electromagnetic spectrum, giving examples of results.
London • Wednesday 21 October 6.30 p.m. • Dr Jenny Collier
Volatile Earth: the water beneath our feet
Everyone is familiar with the water cycle at the Earth’s surface, where the exchange
happens between the sea and the atmosphere. However, there is also a water cycle
within the Earth, where the exchange happens between the sea and the solid-silicate
mantle. Until recently, this deep cycle has been pretty much ignored – yet it has become
increasingly apparent that the small amounts of water can have a dominant effect on
behaviour, and given that the mantle is the largest reservoir on Earth, even with small
abundances it can represent a major part of the planet’s total stock. In this talk I will
show how we are using geophysical methods to detect the presence of water up to
300 km below the surface.
November 2015
Kent • Tuesday 3 November 7.30 p.m. • Professor Sir John Pendry
Metamaterials and the science of invisibility
Electromagnetism encompasses much of modern technology. Its influence rests on
our ability to deploy materials that can control the component electric and magnetic
fields. A new class of materials has created some extraordinary possibilities, such as
negative refractive index, and lenses whose resolution is limited only by the precision
with which we can manufacture them. Cloaks have been designed and built that hide
objects within them, but remain completely invisible to external observers. The new
materials, named metamaterials, have properties determined as much by their internal
physical structure as by their chemical composition – and the radical new properties
to which they give access promise to transform our ability to control much of the
electromagnetic spectrum.
All free, all welcome! Please join our Facebook group www.facebook.com/ioplse
London • Wednesday 4 November 6.30 p.m. • Dr Julia Gog
Hidden epidemics and viruses: the mathematics of disease
One may think that applied maths is mainly used for solving problems in physics, but
increasingly it is becoming an essential tool in biological sciences. Here, we will look at
how mathematics has been applied to help understand and control infectious diseases,
from the scale of a single virus particle through to a global influenza pandemic, and
some mathematical challenges for the future.
Herts • Lindop Building • Wednesday 4 November 7.00 p.m.
• Professor Alan Davies
Feynman’s lost lecture
In March 1964, Richard Feynman gave a lecture entitled “The motion of the planets
around the Sun” as part of a series of physics lectures to freshmen at Caltech. For
more than three decades, details of the lecture were thought to be lost, until the lecture
was “reconstructed” from pictures found in recently discovered scraps of transcripts. It
is a story of Feynman’s genius and his unique ability to show physical concepts in
pictorial form.
Milton Keynes • Tuesday 10 November 7.30 p.m. • Dr Nigel Williams
Nuclear medicine: imaging organ function and targeting disease
Nuclear medicine embraces all applications of radioactive materials in medical
diagnosis, treatment and research. Gamma rays and positrons are used to provide
images of organ or tissue function, and alpha and beta particles are used to treat
disease. Most large hospitals in the UK have access to nuclear-medicine imaging; the
main teaching hospitals offer a wide range of diagnostic and therapeutic services. This
talk will describe the science and technology underlying these techniques and illustrate
their importance to the patient and modern medicine.
Kent • Tuesday 17 November 7.30 p.m. • Professor Stephen Blundell
The North–South divide: how magnetism has repeatedly revolutionised the world
Magnetism is one of the oldest branches of physics, and one that found a technological
application (the magnetic compass) long before the phenomenon was even partially
understood. The history of magnetism is strongly intertwined with the history of
the world, and the key conceptual advances in the subject have had far-reaching
consequences beyond the science. This talk will aim to bring out the main themes in
the story, and bring everything up-to-date with the questions in magnetism that are
occupying scientists today.
London • Wednesday 25 November 6.30 p.m. • Dr Hannah Fry
Hidden connections
We all like to think of ourselves as strong, independent and
single-minded individuals. But despite our illusion of free will,
most of the time we find ourselves swept along by the actions
of those around us. The hidden connections between us can
be used to understand the mathematics of friendships and
even to catch criminals. Hannah takes you on a whistle-stop
tour of how the patterns in our behaviour make us surprisingly
predictable.
This year’s London and South East Branch Dinner will be held after Dr Fry’s evening lecture
at a local restaurant. Please check the IOP LSE Event Calender for dinner updates:
http://london.iop.org