Prof. Walker is Technical Director of the Diamond Light Source and Source Manager for the recently launched New Light Source Project.
Abstract:
The Diamond Light Source which came into operation in January 2007 is the largest medium-energy synchrotron radiation facility in the world. It provides ultra-violet and X-ray beams of exceptionally high brightness for use in a wide range of experiments, enabling scientists and engineers to probe deep into the basic structure of matter and materials.
Diamond may only just have come into operation but next generation sources which will be complementary to Diamond have already been under consideration for some time. A new impetus was given to this recently with the launch of the New Light Source project, which will firstly examine the science needs and then the specification for a possible new UK facility. Such a facility would combine the very latest accelerator and laser technology to produce exceptionally intense, ultra-short, coherent photon beams capable of exploring in unprecedented detail the key dynamical processes that occur in matter on a small spatial scale, and in ultra-fast timescales.
This talk will discuss the background to the Diamond project, how Diamond works, its applications, current status and future development, and conclude with some perspectives on a possible future New Light Source.
Posted by Peter Watson, Sunday 20th April @ 2:00pm
In association with the Oxford May Music Festival.
Featuring:
• Ken Peach, director of the John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science.
• Peter Warry, chairman of the Science and Technologies Facilities Council and author of the Warry report.
Also featuring Nobel Laureate in Physics Frank Wilczek on the funding situation in America.
Posted by Peter Watson, Sunday 20th April @ 1:58pm
Dr Kennedy is a researcher at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and is working on the CMS experiment at the LHC.
Abstract:
I will review the current understanding of the fundamental particles
and the forces which act on them, and emphasise a number of basic
questions which are still to be answered - for example the origin
of mass, and the imbalace between matter and antimatter. I will
describe the LHC project, concentrating on the ways in which the
LHC experiments will address these unanswered questions.
Posted by Peter Watson, Thursday 17th January @ 7:27pm
Prof Frank Close OBE is the author of the best-selling book “The Cosmic Onion” and should delight the Society with his knowledge of particle physics.
Abstract:
The talk is about nothing - the vacuum and the nature of matter.
From the ancient greeks, who insisted there is no such thing as a vacuum, to modern ideas
that the vacuum is a seething sea of virtual particles, and the LHC at CERN, which is
about to begin seeing what the vacuum was like in the first trillionths of a second after the Big Bang,
the nature of nothing has always been a mystery. And did the universe “erupt as a quantum fluctuation out of
nothing”?
Prof Close will also be signing copies of his book “The Void”, copies of which will be available.
Posted by Peter Watson, Wednesday 2nd January @ 10:40am
Dr Lintott is an entertaining speaker, well known as he copresents The Sky at Night with Sir Patrick Moore.
Abstract:
In July 2007 we launched www.galaxyzoo.org
which enlisted the public’s help in classifying images
of galaxies obtained with a robotic telescope. More
than 30 million images have now been viewed, and the
public are as good at the task as professional
astronomers. I’ll review the project, discuss the
first set of science results and look to the future.
Posted by Peter Watson, Thursday 13th December @ 12:08pm
Prof Berry is a very distinguished physicist, being awarded amongst many other prizes the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize for Physics for his work on levitating frogs using magnetic fields.
Abstract:
Many ‘mathematical phenomena’ find application and sometimes spectacular
physical illustration in the physics of light. Concepts such as fractals,
catastrophe theory, knots, infinity, zero, and even when 1+1 fails to equal
2, are needed to understand rainbows, twinkling starlight, sparkling seas,
oriental magic mirrors, and simple experiments on interference, polarization
and focusing. The lecture is strongly visual, and nontechnical, though the
concepts are subtle.
Posted by Peter Watson, Thursday 13th December @ 12:07pm
All the liquid refreshment you could possibly want (as usual) and some festive nibbles.
Posted by Peter Watson, Friday 23rd November @ 9:18am
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