From the dark universe to graphene

By James Dacey

In just over an hour’s time, I’ll be hopping on my bike and cycling to the top of a steep hill where the Nobel laureate Andre Geim will be found practising his lines. Sir Andre Geim is delivering a talk at the University of Bristol as part of a series of lectures to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Physics World. In Random Walk to Stockholm, Geim is going to be discussing his work on graphene that led to him sharing the 2010 Nobel prize with Konstantin Novoselov. He will also try to explain why this “wonder material” is attracting so much attention today.

For the small percentage of you who live close to Bristol, there are still tickets left for the event, which starts at 18:00 local time (by rippstein). I am planning to publish an audio recording of the lecture on this website after the event, for those of you who cannot attend tonight.

The first lecture in this series was given two weeks ago by Catherine Heymans of the University of Edinburgh. Heymans spoke about The Dark Universe, covering dark matter, dark energy, the structure of our universe from the largest to the smallest scales, flying pigs and even astronomical tooth fairies! You can listen to a recording of that event here.

Don’t forget you can read all about the dark universe and the exciting technologies that might spawn from graphene research, in the 25 year special anniversary issue of Physics World, available as a free PDF download.