Event Details
Location: Lindemann Lecture Theatre, Clarendon Laboratory
Cost: Free for members, £2 for non-members.
Contact Details: oups.committee@googlemail.com
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.