What is the big picture of the expanding Universe? What is the significance of its age, shape and size?
Professor John Barrow, Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University, will be shedding light on these questions and others at the Herschel lecture being held at the University of Bath on Thursday 11 November.
He will describe the inflationary Universe scenario and the observational evidence in its
favour, some reasons to take multiverses seriously, and the problems created by the mysterious runaway acceleration of the Universe today.
Professor Barrow is also the Director of the Millennium Mathematics Project, a programme to improve the teaching, learning and appreciation of mathematics and its applications, and the current Gresham Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London.
His research interests are in cosmology, gravitation physics and the interface between particle physics and astronomy.
He has received many awards, including the 2006 Templeton Prize, the Royal Society’s 2008 Faraday Prize and the 2009 Kelvin Medal of the Institute of Physics.
Professor Barrow has written more than 450 scientific papers, and 20 books, translated into 28 languages, together with many popular science articles. The most recent of these are Cosmic Imagery and 100 Essential Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know and the next title, The Book of Universes will appear in early 2011. His play, Infinities, won the Italian Premi Ubu for best play in the Italian theatre in 2002, and the 2003 Italgas Prize.
The free public lecture will be held at The Claverton campus at 7pm in Lecture Theatre 8 West 1.1. Anyone interested should turn up early as space is limited. There is free car-parking in the West car park after 6pm.