Table of Contents
Michael West Lecture Series - Archive
Lawrence Krauss gives Michael West Lecture
On October 22, 2014 the Larmor Lecture Theatre at Queen's University Belfast was filled with nearly 270 people for the Michael West Lecture entitled Journey to the Beginning of Time given by Prof. Lawrence Krauss.
During the talk Professor Krauss discussed what could potentially be the most exciting discovery of our time, the signature of gravitational waves in the early universe.
Prof Lawrence M. Krauss, Arizona State University
22nd October 2014, Larmor Lecture Theatre, 7.30pm
Prof. Lawrence M. Krauss is an internationally known theoretical physicist and acclaimed teacher and lecturer. His studies include the early universe, the nature of dark matter, general relativity and neutrino astrophysics. He is currently the Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and Physics Department, and Inaugural Director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University. Origins will become a centre for research and outreach on origins issues, from the origins of the universe, to human origins, to the origins of consciousness and culture.
He is the author of many acclaimed popular books, including, 'The Fifth Essence: The Search for Dark Matter in the Universe', 'Atom: An Odyssey from the Big Bang to Life on Earth…and Beyond' and his newest book 'A Universe from Nothing: Why there is something rather than nothing'. In 2013, he starred in a new full length feature film documentary called 'The Unbelievers', which follows Krauss and colleague Richard Dawkins around the world as they discuss science and reason.
This was the sixth lecture in the Michael West Lecture series. The lecture series is presented in association with the Irish Astronomical Association.
Ernst is the current Michael West fellow who works on exoplanets and public outreach at Queen’s.
Michael West Lecture: Exoplanets and the search for extraterrestrial life
Professor Ignas Snellen, Leiden Observatory, Leiden University
Thursday 27th August, 7:30pm in the Larmor Lecture Theatre, QUB
A true revolution is unfolding in the study of planets orbiting other stars than the Sun. Soon we can start to search for life on planets like Earth. Do we know what to look for, and what to expect?
Professor Ignas Snellen from Leiden University is a world leading expert on the study of exoplanet atmospheres using ground-based telescopes.
Michael West Lecture: The GAIA mission and the Origin of the Milky Way
Prof. Gerry Gilmore FRS, University of Cambridge
5th February 2014, Larmor Lecture Theatre, 7pm
Gerry is Professor of Experimental Philosophy, Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge. Throughout his career he has led efforts to understand the structure and origin of our Galaxy. Gerry played a big role in selection of ESA's revolutionary GAIA mission which will map a billion stars in the Milky Way. He is an outstanding communicator and advocate for science in society. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2013.
Michael West Lecture: The Sun
Dr Lucie Green University College London
17 October 2012, Larmor Lecture Theatre, 7pm.
The second Michael West Public Lecture of 2012 is "The Sun" by Dr Lucie Green. Lucie Green is a space scientist who studies the Sun. She was a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow and I now holds a Leverhulme Fellowship. Dr Green also works in TV (you may have seen her in The Sky At Night) and radio, writes science articles and give talks about the UK's current research in solar system science. She was the 2009 recipient of the Kohn Award for excellence in public engagement with science.
Michael West Lecture: What if the speed of light isn't constant? What you gain and what you lose.
Prof João Magueijo, Imperial College London
2 May 2012, Larmor Lecture Theatre, 7pm.
João Magueijo has defied one of the tenets of modern physics, that the speed of light is a universal constant. His research in cosmology lies at the very frontier of our understanding of how the Universe was born and continues to evolve. Magueijo has held the prestigious St. John’s College (Cambridge) and Royal Society research fellowships, and has been a visiting researcher at the University of California at Berkeley and at Princeton University. He is currently Reader in Theoretical Physics at Imperial College, London.
Michael West Lecture: Killer Asteroids
Dr Robert Jedicke
3 August 2011, Larmor Lecture Theatre, 7pm
Dr Robert Jedicke has had four professional careers: Canadian football player, particle physicist, software engineer and astronomer. At the University of Hawaii he leads the PanSTARRS team searching for asteroids and comets. In three years, PanSTARRS will discover more solar system objects than have been found in the past two centuries.
The current surveys for 1km near-Earth asteroids have almost completed their goal of finding 90% of the population, but the telescopes used are too small to discover more than a fraction of the dangerous sub-km objects. A renowned asteroid hunter, Jedicke is leading the search for dangerous ast
Supermassive Black Holes
Prof Reinhard Genzel
22 July 2011, Larmor Lecture Theatre, 7pm
Prof Reinhard Genzel is an expert in the astrophysics of massive black holes. He is the director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Munich, Germany and a Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, USA. He was the recipient of the 2007 Albert Einstein Medal.
Over the past two decades, compelling evidence has been obtained for the existence of black holes with masses millions of times that of our Sun. In 2008, Reinhard Genzel won the prestigious Shaw Prize for establishing the existence of such a supermassive black hole in the centre of our own Milky Way.
Michael West Lecture: Einstein’s Gravity From The Transit Of Mercury To The Detection Of Gravitational Waves
Professor Parick Brady, Center for Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics, University of Wisconsin
Monday 9th May, 8pm in the Larmor Lecture Theatre, QUB
One hundred years ago, Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves. Scientists recently announced the first direct detection of gravitational waves from a pair of black holes that collided about a billion years ago in a far-away galaxy. These travelled across the Universe at the speed of light causing tiny changes in the curvature of spacetime that were measured using the LIGO detectors on 14 September 2015. This observation marks the end of a century-long quest to understand and measure Einstein's gravitational waves. It also marks the birth of gravitational-wave astronomy: a whole new way to observe the Universe.
Please note, we expect this lecture to be very popular so register early to avoid disappointment.