The Annual Peter Lindsay Memorial Lecture 2018: Neil Turok

The lecture is free to attend and open to all, but registration is required in advance 
A pre-lecture tea will take place from 16.45 on Concourse Level 2 of the City and Guilds Building.
Abstract
Neil Turok gives the 11th Annual Peter Lindsay Memorial lecture entitled Quantum Universe.
Observations reveal the cosmos to be astonishingly simple, and yet deeply puzzling, on the largest accessible scales. Why is it so nearly symmetrical? Why is there a cosmological constant (or dark energy) and what fixes its value? How did everything we see emerge from a singular “point” in the past? Many lines of evidence now point to a quantum beginning, in which spacetime itself was governed by quantum laws. Hitherto, it has been assumed that such a beginning necessarily required cosmic inflation, and ad hoc ingredients including an initially dominant “inflaton” field. Recently, using powerful new mathematical techniques, Turok and colleagues have proven such proposals to be mathematically inconsistent. More excitingly, they now have a glimpse of a far more minimal and predictive “causa sui” cosmology.
Biography
Neil Turok (PhD Imperial College London, 1983) is Director and Niels Bohr Chair at the world-renowned Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada. Previously, he was Reader at Imperial, Professor of Physics at Princeton and Chair of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge.
Turok’s research focuses on developing and testing cosmological theories. His predictions for the correlations of the polarization and temperature of the cosmic background radiation (CBR) and of the galaxy-CBR correlations induced by dark energy have been confirmed at high precision. He has pioneered detailed investigations of many theoretical proposals, including cosmic strings, “single-bubble” inflationary universes - the basis of the multiverse paradigm - as well as cyclic universe scenarios.
Born in South Africa, Turok founded the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) which operates centres of excellence for postgraduate training and research in South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon, Tanzania, and Rwanda. For his discoveries and his work building AIMS, Turok was awarded a TED Prize in 2008. In 2012, he delivered the CBC Massey Lectures, broadcast across Canada and published as The Universe Within, a prizewinning bestseller. In 2016 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the UK Institute of Physics, the John Torrence Tate Medal of the American Institute of Physics for International Leadership in Physics as well as the John Wheatley Award from the American Physical Society.
About the annual Peter Lindsay Lecture
Peter Lindsay, an alumnus of Imperial College who died in 2006, was Emeritus Professor at King’s College London and Research Professor at Queen Mary, University of London, and was distinguished for his contributions to microwave device theory, quantum electronics and the application of lasers in engineering.
Professor Lindsay came to London in 1939 and gained a BSc, MSc and PhD at Imperial in quick succession. He specialised in research on microwave electron tubes (valves) and produced seminal papers on electron velocity distributions and noise phenomena in magnetron devices.
He worked in industry and academia in the US before returning to the UK as a lecturer in electrical engineering at King’s where he was was awarded a personal chair in physical electronics in 1974, and also served as Dean of Engineering. Peter was a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the Institute of Physics, and the City and Guilds College.
The annual lecture invites eminent speakers to discuss developments that are enhancing the knowledge and understanding of scientists and researchers who are at the forefront of tackling challenges.