Is the End in Sight for Theoretical Physics? with Graham Farmelo ⚛️
Biographer and science writer Graham Farmelo — author of acclaimed lives of Paul Dirac and, in late September, Stephen Hawking — takes the title of Hawking’s Lucasian Inaugural Lecture of April 1980. He looks at the genesis of the original presentation, the splash it made, and how views changed in later decades before hazarding a present-day answer to Hawking’s provocative question. Part of the Oxford Mathematics Public Lectures.
What to expect:
⚛️ Hawking’s great question, revisited — How one of the most provocative lectures in modern physics was born, received, and reconsidered — with a contemporary verdict from one of science writing’s most respected authors
📚 Inside the minds of Dirac and Hawking — Farmelo’s biographical eyewitness view of two titans of theoretical physics, drawing on his new authorised biography of Stephen Hawking
📺 Free to attend, in person or online — Register by email to external-relations@maths.ox.ac.uk for an in-person seat, or catch the broadcast on the Oxford Mathematics YouTube Channel on 5 November — no registration needed for the online version