'The Big Bang Machine': The 7th Patrick Moore Lecture

Brian Cox, physicist, former rock band member and media personality, will give the 7th Patrick Moore Lecture at the University of Birmingham on Thursday 4th October at 7.30pm.

Entitled ‘The Big Bang Machine’, Brian will talk about his work at the CERN laboratory, where, in a 27km tunnel under the ground in Geneva, scientists from all over the world are exploring the mysteries of the universe by measuring particle collisions under conditions that would have existed less than a millionth of a second after the beginning of the Universe. 

Brian, now a physicist at Manchester University, is also known for being a musician and played keyboard for the rock bands Dare and D:Ream, who had the hit single ‘Things Can Only Get Better’.  He has been a presenter and contributor to many TV and radio programmes including the BBC’s Horizon and Six Billion Dollar Experiment.  He was also scientific advisor for Danny Boyle’s sci-fi movie Sunshine and writes on scientific issues, most recently in The Times and the New Statesman.

Scientists from Birmingham’s School of Physics and Astronomy already know Brian’s work well as they are also involved in the project at CERN, and have designed and built sophisticated electronics (trigger electronics) that will help select the important particle collisions – the collisions that are selected by these triggers will help scientists to concentrate on the data most likely to yield new discoveries.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will take place in the Poynting Physics Large Lecture theatre, and afterwards, depending on the weather, members of the audience will be able to view the skies with telescopes.  Tea and biscuits will be served at 7pm.

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Notes to Editors

This series of talks is funded by the STFC www.scitech.ac.uk (Public Understanding Science Grant) and is organised by the School of Physics and Astronomy (www.ph.bham.ac.uk and the student society, Astrosoc (www.astrosoc.org.uk)

For further information

Kate Chapple, Press Officer, University of Birmingham, tel 0121 414 2772 or 07789 921164.