THE OCKHAM LECTURE
The Merton College Physics Lecture


Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate
                                        

40th Lecture Michaelmas 2024	Professor Tunde Fulop Visiting Research Fellow,    Merton College Full Professor of Physics & Head of Plasma Theory Group,    Division of Subatomic, High-Energy and Plasma Physics,    Department of Physics,    Chalmers University of Technology,    Gothenburg, Sweden Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences    and the European Academy of Sciences Alfven Prize, 2024 webpage Google Scholar Lecturer introduced by Prof Alex Schekochihin	Creating and Controlling Beams in Plasmas Electron acceleration and its associated radiation in plasmas has fascinated humankind with its beauty for centuries. It occurs in such diverse phenomena as laser-produced plasmas, electrical discharges associated with thunderstorms, aurorae in planetary magnetospheres, solar flares and fusion plasmas. However, the natural beauty of the observable signatures of these processes is not the only reason we are interested in them. Understanding their causes, characteristics and consequences has practical importance in several fields, ranging from energy generation to protection against solar storms. In this lecture, I will describe examples of relativistic electron beams in laboratory plasmas, as well as strategies for how to create and control them.	Tuesday November 5 (week IV) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
39th Lecture Trinity 2024	Malcolm Crick Merton College (1977) Director of the Secretariat (2005-17),    United Nations Scientific Committee    on the Effects of Atomic Radiation    (UNSCEAR), Vienna Head (1996-2005),    Incident & Emergency Centre,    International Atomic Energy Authority Order of the Rising Sun, Japan (2022) UNSCEAR webpage IAEA IEC webpage Lecturer introduced by the Warden, Prof Jennifer Payne	Levels and Effects of Radiation Exposure: Are We Too Scared or Not Scared Enough? From Chernobyl to Fukushima and From Radon to Computer Tomography A recent Netflix series reminded us of the tragedy of Chernobyl. On 26 April 1986, in the then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant suffered what was to be the world's worst reactor accident. At the time there was much fear across the world about its consequences. The public were poorly equipped to understand the main issues and to gain perspective. The media also struggled. Arnold Allen in the Financial Times of September that year wrote: "All I know about the becquerel is that, like the Italian lira, you need an awful lot to amount to very much". It is fair to say that poor communication led to a lack of trust in authorities, which subsequently drove poor decisions and delayed recovery. Nowadays, the public remain blissfully unaware of the radiation environment in which we all live, and yet would expect any scientist to be able to answer their questions, should the need arise. In this lecture I will share insight on radiation risk communication gleaned from a professional career of more than 35 years at the national and international level. I will draw on experience whilst heading the IAEA's Incident and Emergency Centre, and as Director of the Secretariat for UNSCEAR. I will recall the quantities and units used to express human exposure to ionising radiation and give an overview of the levels of exposure across the globe. You should be able to appreciate the relative contributions made by the various natural and artificial sources of radiation to human exposure, be they related to members of the public, specifically medical patients, or to workers. I will also summarise present knowledge about the human health risks and effects of radiation exposure and share current understanding of the mechanisms involved. Along the way, I will take you behind the scenes and share how international agencies have addressed challenges raised by, inter alia, atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, and the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents, and how they have responded to new findings on the risks of exposure such as to radon gas and the increasing usage of CT scans in medicine.	Thursday May 23 (week V) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the JCR Sign up on Facebook
38th Lecture Hilary 2024	Professor Charlotte Mason Merton College (MPhys 2013) Associate Professor,    Cosmic Dawn Center,    Niels Bohr Institute,    University of Copenhagen Merton profile webpage Google Scholar Lecturer introduced by Prof Alan Barr	Chasing Cosmic Dawn with the James Webb Space Telescope There is a missing chapter in our Universe's history: when and how did the first stars and galaxies form? The first stars drove the Universe's final phase transition by heating and ionising intergalactic gas, setting the stage for all subsequent structure formation. Until recently this has been the realm of theorists alone, but, with the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in December 2021, our observational horizon has expanded to the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang. JWST is the largest telescope ever launched into space and was designed to observe directly this period of "Cosmic Dawn", using atomic-hydrogen transitions to search for the first galaxies. Excitingly, JWST has discovered a large number of bright galaxies in the early Universe, implying galaxy formation may have proceeded very differently than expected by theoretical models. I will review our current picture of galaxy formation and how it is being tested by JWST. I will describe possible explanations for the new observations and prospects for JWST to distinguish between these scenarios and to help us understand the primary physics driving the formation of the first galaxies. Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Thursday February 22 (week VI) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
37th Lecture Michaelmas 2023	Professor Ilya Nemenman Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor,    Department of Physics,    Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia Simons Investigator webpage Google Scholar Lecturer introduced by Prof Ard Louis	Emergent Laws of Physics and Biological Simplicity I will discuss "biological simplicity"---new laws of (statistical) physics emerging in complex living systems. I will give examples of such laws in systems with many interacting components, such as brains or viral-immune co-evolution. Trying to understand these laws in the framework of statistical physics of the more traditional, inanimate world will open up somewhat unexpected connections between the existence of biological simplicity and the success of modern machine learning in building models of big data sets. Finally, completing a full circle, I will discuss how random matrix theory, originally used by Wigner to explain spectra of heavy nuclei, may hold an explanation for some of these emergent laws. The lecture on YouTube	Tuesday October 17 (week II) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
36th Lecture Trinity 2023	Professor Steven Kivelson Visiting Professor,    Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics,    University of Oxford Prabhu Goel Family Family Professor,    Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics,    Physics Department,    Stanford University, California Member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA webpage Google Scholar wikipedia Lecturer introduced by Prof Shivaji Sondhi	Understanding the Emergent Properties of Complex Systems In some cases, it is possible to make quantitative predictions concerning measurable quantities on the basis of the relevant laws of physics---famously, it is possible to compute the spectrum of the hydrogen atom with extraordinary accuracy from Schroedinger's equation. This has lead to a widely taught dogma that quantitative agreement between theory and experiment is the essence of the "scientific method," the justification for belief in science. However, the behaviour of complex systems, in general, and of "emergent phenomena" in particular, can never be computed with any great precision from the microscopic laws of physics that govern the dynamics of the constituent parts---for well understood and fundamentally significant reasons. What, then, does it mean to have a successful theory of such phenomena---how are we to judge truth when the naive application of the scientific method is precluded? This issue affects the ways in which we construct our understanding and measure the validity of studies of an enormous range of important scientific problems from climate change to high-energy physics. Rather than addressing the general issue, I will first discuss two examples of condensed-matter systems for which a theoretical understanding of certain emergent phenomena has been successfully constructed: the renormalisation-group theory of classical critical phenomena and the BCS theory of conventional superconductivity. It is useful to analyse what metrics have been used to establish their validity, and why these theories work, despite the fact that in many significant ways they are quantitatively unreliable. Then I will turn to a topic of current research---the theory of high-temperature superconductivity---and will discuss what it would mean to "solve" it and what progress has been made toward this solution.	Tuesday May 16 (week IV) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
35th Lecture Hilary 2023	Ravin Jain Merton College (MMathPhys 2016) Race Strategy Engineer,    Scuderia Ferrari (Ferrari F1 team),    Maranello, Emilia-Romagna, Italy LinkedIn page Lecturer introduced by Prof Alan Barr	From Merton to Maranello: Physics on the Race Track Formula 1 is understood as the pinnacle of motorsport, but what lies behind what you see on TV? Together we will explore how physics underpins the high-octane thrills, and the ground-breaking technology used in modern F1 cars. I will speak about my journey from Merton to Maranello, the home of Scuderia Ferrari, before zooming in on a discussion of race strategy. Analysing vast quantities of data; modelling countless variables to maintain a competitive edge; making decisions in high-pressure environments all over the world---it is no wonder that race strategy has been compared to playing chess at 200mph. In this talk, we'll go behind the scenes: from the initial ideas discussed weeks before the cars even reach the race track, through to the final call, moments before those "box now" messages over the radio.	Tuesday February 7 (week IV) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the JCR Sign up on Facebook
34th Lecture Michaelmas 2022	Professor Peter Davidson Professor of Fluid Mechanics,    Department of Engineering,    University of Cambridge webpage Google Scholar page Lecturer introduced by Prof Alexander Schekochihin	How Does the Earth Generate its Magnetic Field? The origins of the Earth's magnetic field, and indeed that of the other planets, remains one of great unsolved problems in classical physics. While all agree that there must be some form of dynamo at work within the fluid core, converting mechanical energy into magnetic energy, there is still little agreement as to the precise nature of that dynamo. Speculative cartoons of a fluid dynamo have been around for almost half a century, but until very recently there has been no means of testing the veracity of those cartoons. However, in the last few years, the numerical simulations of the Earth's core have finally managed to enter a dynamically relevant regime. It seems timely, therefore, to compare the results of those simulations with the conceptual cartoons of previous decades. Such a comparison yields surprising results, forcing the abandonment of long cherished mechanisms, and pointing to the important role of incompressible waves within the fluid core. These waves are maintained by the Coriolis force and have a helical structure which continually twists the internal magnetic field lines, generating magnetic energy.	Tuesday November 22 (week VII) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the JCR Sign up on Facebook
33rd Lecture Trinity 2022	The 2nd Ockham Debate Professor Ard Louis Professor of Theoretical Physics,    University of Oxford webpage wikipedia vs. Professor Simon Saunders Fellow of the College Professor of Philosophy of Science,    University of Oxford webpage wikipedia Debate moderated by Prof Minhyong Kim (Director, ICMS, Edinburgh)	Does Physics Imply Atheism? Or Is Physics the New Deism? Is theism compatible with the scientific outlook? Is it compatible with physics? Richard Dawkins has famously argued that religion depends on faith, and that faith has no place in science. But is it true that religion depends on faith---or might it be an expression of humility? And is it true that faith has no place in physics and mathematics? We can at best obtain relative consistency proofs of one body of mathematics with respect to another: is it not an article of faith that mathematics as a whole is consistent? There is no experimental evidence in favour of string theory: is it not an article of faith among physicists that it is nevertheless the correct way forward? Or it may be that the question of faith is not what distinguishes the scientific outlook from the religious. If there is yet an important difference between them, does it follow that they are rivals? Is physics the new deism, arbiter on our ultimate origins and our ultimate destiny, in competition with theism?    Theist and theoretical physicist Ard Louis defends the compatibility of religion and physics; atheist and philosopher of science Simon Saunders takes the contrary view; mathematician and agnostic Minhyong Kim chairs. Video recording of the debate	Monday May 23 (week V) TS Eliot LT 16:45 Reception 17:15 Debate 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
The Ockham Debate of Trinity Term 2020 was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Acts of God, or otherwise, were to be discussed in Trinity Term 2022.
32nd Lecture Hilary 2020	Dr Chiara Marletto Merton College (DPhil 2013) Junior Research Fellow,    Wolfson College, Oxford Research Associate, Department of Materials,    University of Oxford webpage Lecturer introduced by Prof Artur Ekert FRS	"The Physics of Can and Can't": From the Universal Computer to the Universal Constructor The theory of the universal quantum computer has brought us rapid technological developments, together with remarkable improvements in how we understand quantum theory. There are, however, reasons to believe that quantum theory may ultimately have to be modified into a new theory: for instance, it will have to be merged with general relativity, to incorporate gravity; and some claim that it may be impossible to have quantum effects beyond a certain macroscopic scale. So what lies ahead of quantum theory, and of the universal quantum computer? Can the Occam razor help solve these problems? To shed some light onto these questions, we need a shift of logic in the way things are explained. Specifically, one can adopt an approach where the basic assumptions are general principles about possible/impossible transformations, rather than dynamical laws and initial conditions. This approach is called constructor theory. I will describe its application to a handful of interconnected problems, within information theory, thermodynamics, and even quantum gravity. This "Physics of Can and Can't" may be the first step towards the ultimate generalisation of the universal quantum computer, which von Neumann called the "universal constructor". Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Monday March 9 (week VIII) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the JCR Sign up on Facebook
31st Lecture Michaelmas 2019	Professor Stuart Bale Professor of Physics, Director (till 2018), Space Sciences Laboratory,    University of California, Berkeley webpage Parker Solar Probe (wikipedia) Lecturer introduced by Prof Alex Schekochihin	To Hell and Back with a NASA Spacecraft: the First Perihelia of the Parker Solar Probe The solar corona is known to be hot. It is much hotter than the Sun below it, which is presumably the source of this heating. It is thought that the mechanisms of coronal heating involve the magnetic fields generated in the outer, convection layers of the Sun. This superhot plasma then escapes solar gravity and is launched as the 'solar wind.' However, for lack of direct measurements, the physical processes responsible for all of this are not currently known. The NASA Parker Solar Probe (PSP) mission was launched in 2018 into an orbit that will take it deep into the corona to make the first in situ measurements of these plasma dynamics. The Parker Solar Probe is a feat of heroic thermal engineering and in its orbit around the Sun is the fastest ever manmade object. I will describe the PSP mission and scientific instrumentation and show some measurements from the first few perihelia at 35.7 solar radii. These measurements reveal an emerging solar wind characterised by smooth radial flow, with highly unstable plasma distributions, punctuated by plasma jets dragging along intense, highly kinked magnetic fields. Whereas the solar wind at 1 au is very different---mixed, homogeneous, and relatively stable. We don't know yet the implications of the new measurements, but simple arguments would suggest that these plasma jets play a role in coronal heating. Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Monday October 21 (week II) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
30th Lecture Trinity 2019	Professor Steven Balbus FRS Savilian Professor of Astronomy, Head of Astrophysics,    University of Oxford Shaw Prize (2013) Member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA wikipedia Lecturer introduced by Prof Alex Schekochihin	Life's a Beach: the Moon, the Tides, and the Emergence of Terrestrial Vertebrates The very similar angular sizes of the Sun and Moon as subtended at the Earth are generally portrayed as coincidental. Is it possible that there is some science behind this odd fact? Close angular size agreement is a direct and inevitable mathematical consequence of even roughly comparable lunar and solar tidal forces. I will argue that the latter was a biological imperative for the evolution of land vertebrates and can thus be understood on the basis of anthropic arguments. Comparable tidal forces from two astronomical sources lead to spring and neap tides. This appearance of what must be an unusual planetary tidal pattern is consequential for the palaeogeography and biology of the Late Devonian period. Two great land masses were separated by a broad opening tapering to a very narrow, shallow-sea strait. The combination of this geography and variable tidal forces would have been conducive to forming a rich inland network of shallow, very transient tidal pools, leading to an epoch when shallows-loving fish were forced to acquire land navigational skills for survival. I will discuss the recent fossil evidence showing that important transitional species lived in habitats strongly influenced by intermittent tides, and speculate on the role of tides in the late Devonian mass extinctions.   Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Monday June 3 (week VI) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the College bar Sign up on Facebook
29th Lecture Hilary 2019	Prof Roger Blandford FRS Luke Blossom Professor    in the School of Humanities and Sciences,    Stanford University Professor of Physics and    of Particle Physics and Astrophysics,    Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology Professor,    Stanford Linear Accelerator Center Member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA webpage wikipedia Lecturer introduced by Prof Katherine Blundell OBE	Confirmation, Conviction and Cosmology The past sixty years have seen the transformation of cosmology from a weakly constrained metaphysics to a scientific description based on careful observation and accurate measurement. We now know that the universe expanded from a hot beginning to its present state, dominated by an unidentified "dark matter" and an enigmatic "cosmological constant". In a similar fashion to what has happened with particle physics, this "standard model" provides a basis for relating the narrative history of galaxies, stars and planets. It also also establishes a starting point for discussion of more fundamental issues, where differences in philosophy find some parallels in the contrasting views of William of Ockham and his contemporaries. slides (pptx, including text of lecture, 55 Mb) Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Monday February 25 (week VII) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the College bar Sign up on Facebook
28th Lecture Michaelmas 2018	Prof Madhavi Krishnan Fellow (2018) and Tutor in Chemistry,    Merton College Associate Professor of Physical Chemistry,    University of Oxford webpage Lecturer introduced by Prof Veronique Gouverneur	How to Trap Your Nano-Object: New Frontiers in the Control, Manipulation and Measurement of Matter at the Nanometer Scale A microscopic bit of matter in solution is in continuous motion. Pummeled at random by the solvent, it engages in a Brownian walk that will eventually take it far away from where we first started to observe it. At the nanometer scale, even gravity or other external fields are often too weak to influence the trajectory of the object. Relying on like-charge electrostatic repulsion, we recently achieved the ability to stably spatially confine a single charged molecule in a room temperature solution, without recourse to external fields. Exploiting equilibrium thermodynamics to realise this goal, our approach presents a paradigm shift in the context of a century-old effort to trap matter using applied fields. This experimental advance has not only opened up avenues in ultrasensitive biomolecular measurement and detection, but is also furnishing deeper basic insight into the electrostatic interaction in solution, and may pave the way to understanding the enigmatic experimental observation that like charged objects can attract one another.	Monday October 15 (week II) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
27th Lecture Trinity 2018	Prof Slava Rychkov Professeur permanent,    Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques,    Bur-sur-Yvette, France MHI-ENS Chair Professor in High-Energy Physics,    Ecole normale superieure, Paris Research Staff Member,    Theoretical Physics Department, CERN New Horizons Prize (2014) webpage Lecturer introduced by Prof Alex Schekochihin	Reductionism vs. Bootstrap: Are Things Big Always Made of Things Elementary? We love to reduce physical systems to a few elementary blocks, which we can operate as a LEGO game to build more complicated "composite" objects. Geoffrey Chew in 1960's hypothesized, in connection with high-energy physics, a different type of situation when there are infinitely many particles, all of them equally elementary (or equally composite), and whose mutual existence is forced by tight requirements of self-consistency. He called this scheme "bootstrap", referring to a magical act of lifting oneself by shoelaces. I will explain how recently the "bootstrap" idea found a concrete realisation in the theory of critical phenomena, the three-dimensional Ising model being the simplest bootstrap system. slides (pdf, 16Mb) Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Monday April 30 (week II) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
26th Lecture Hilary 2018	Prof Irene Tracey FRCA, FMedSci Warden-elect,    Merton College (DPhil 1993, M.Biochem. 1989) Nuffield Chair of Anaesthetic Science, Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neuroscience,    University of Oxford webpage Lecturer introduced by the Sub-Warden, Prof Judith Armitage FRS	From Neurons to Perception: How Physics Opened the Black Box With over 85 billion neurons making approximately 1.5x1014 connections (synapses) and a similar quantity of non-neuronal cells all within the adult human brain, it's a feat of brilliance and beauty that our perceptions and creative thinking arise from their interplay. Our knowledge of how this occurs has grown significantly in the past few decades, and physicists have been at the forefront of this wave in understanding. In this talk, I will walk you through some of the landmark discoveries and their application to the brain, highlighting Oxford's major role in developing the modern field of neuroscience. Finally, I will give a brief overview of my own work using advanced neuroimaging to understand pain perception, pain relief and anaesthesia-induced altered states of consciousness. slides (pdf, 107Mb) Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Monday February 12 (week V) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
25th Lecture Michaelmas 2017	Dr Peter Braam Wyliot Fellow and former Junior Research Fellow,    Merton College Scientist and Entrepreneur Founder, CEO, President and Director,    Cluster File Systems, Inc. webpage Lecturer introduced by the Warden, Sir Martin Taylor FRS	Extreme Computing for the SKA Telescope The Square Kilometer Array radio telescope is currently under design by institutions in 10 countries for deployment in remote deserts around 2022. With over a million antennas, It will be a revolutionary, CERN like, scientific instrument to study astrophysics. Ultra large HPC systems will transform a massive stream of antenna data---as much as an exa-byte per day---into scientific data for worldwide consumption. The steepest challenges lie in the 50-year expected instrument lifetime in an age when computing is evolving much faster, but also in handling sheer scale, including achieving extreme parallelism in the algorithms and providing 200 PB/sec of memory bandwidth, under strict power constraints. This presentation covers an overview of the computing required for the telescope at the intersection of physics, mathematics and computer science. Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Tuesday October 24 (week III) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the JCR Sign up on Facebook
24th Lecture Trinity 2017	Professor David Charlton FRS Professor of Particle Physics,    School of Physics and Astronomy,    University of Birmingham Spokesman (2013-2016),    ATLAS Collaboration, CERN webpage wikipedia Lecturer introduced by Prof Alan Barr	Beyond the Higgs Discovery: The Coming of Age of ATLAS and the CERN LHC Following the early discovery of the 125 GeV Higgs boson by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in 2012, we are still only just starting to explore the scalar sector of the Standard Model. The LHC has been off for two of the last four years for the repairs needed to achieve close to the full collision energy. During the barnstorming physics run in 2016, the LHC achieved its design luminosity, and the physics programme is now properly underway.  In addition to a deeper elaboration of the Higgs sector, a huge range of measurements, and searches for new physics, are in progress, and will continue for two more decades as the data sample increases a couple more (decimal) orders of magnitude. This lecture will review the current status of the LHC and ATLAS, and look at some challenges on the road ahead. slides (pdf, 22Mb) Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Monday May 15 (week IV) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
23rd Lecture Hilary 2017	Professor Charles W. Clark Visiting Scholar,    Merton College Fellow,    Physical Measurement Laboratory,    National Institute of Standards and Technology,    USA Fellow and Adjunct Professor,    Joint Quantum Institute,    NIST and University of Maryland,    College Park, USA webpage Lecturer introduced by Prof Ian Walmsley FRS	Twisting the Neutron Wave Function Wave motions in nature were known to the ancients, and their mathematical expression in physics today is essentially the same as that first provided by d'Alembert and Euler in the mid-18th century. Yet it was only in the early 1990s that physicists managed to control a basic property of light waves: their capability of swirling around their own axis of propagation. During the past decade such techniques of control have also been developed for quantum particles: atoms, electrons and neutrons. I will present a simple description of these phenomena, emphasising the most basic aspects of wave and quantum particle motion. Neutron interferometry offers a poignant perspective on wave-particle duality: at the time one neutron is detected, the next neutron has not yet even been born. Here, indeed, each neutron "then only interferes with itself." Yet, using macroscopically-machined objects, we are able to twist neutron deBroglie waves with sub-nanometer wavelengths. Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Monday February 27 (week VII) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
22nd Lecture Michaelmas 2016	Juliet Davenport OBE Merton College (1986) CEO, Good Energy webpage profile Lecturer introduced by the Warden, Sir Martin Taylor FRS	From High-Carbon Baby to Low-Carbon Boardroom The UK is in the midst of an energy revolution. From software to semiconductors, sensors, solar energy and storage: digitisation, decentralisation and flexibility will be at the heart of a future energy network. This transformation is being shaped in part by a better understanding of the interrelationship between complex weather systems, climate influence and society. In this lecture, I will share with you how my physics background shaped my perception of this relationship. It will explore the path I took from my inspiring undergraduate studies here at Merton, my influences and turning points, to how I ended up running the UK's first renewable electricity supply business---a business built around my passion for developing a sustainable and responsible reaction to our changing climate. This journey through the business world has been challenging and complex, with widespread opportunities to make a noticeable difference in the direction of climate and environment research and policy, and generate much needed change in the energy sector. slides (pdf, 8Mb) Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Tuesday, November 22 (week VII) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the College Bar Sign up on Facebook
21st Lecture Trinity 2016	Professor Bill Dorland Merton SCR Visiting Professor of Theoretical Physics,    University of Oxford Professor of Physics, Director of the Honors College (till 2015),    University of Maryland,    College Park, USA Editor, Journal of Plasma Physics webpage profile Lecturer introduced by Prof Alexander Schekochihin	Nuclear Forensics National security professionals in the United States worry about many threats, real and imagined. In this lecture, I will focus on questions surrounding the threat of a nuclear detonation by an unidentified attacker. How can a country best protect itself against nuclear terrorism? What are the technical limits of attribution after the fact? Deterrence has long been the central pillar of nuclear defence. How would deterrence work against non-state actors? What does deterrence theory say about foes who have no capacity to deliver a nuclear warhead by conventional means? Recently, I worked on these questions with a panel of technical experts. I will present some of our more interesting findings, together with a non-classified (because I do not have security clearance!) survey of the technical issues that underlie each of these questions. If you plan to attend, here is a homework problem, to be thought about and talked about with your friends before you arrive. After the fall of the Soviet Union, there were suddenly many potentially poorly guarded nuclear weapons in the world. Perhaps some are unaccounted for even today. Let us stipulate that missing Soviet weapons presently comprise the greatest nuclear threat to Western democracies. If you were the British Prime Minister, what would you do to protect London from this particular threat? slides (pdf, 6.6Mb) Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Monday, May 2 (week II) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
20th Lecture Hilary 2016	Professor Dr Per Helander Visiting Research Fellow,    Merton College Head of Stellarator Theory Division,    Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics,    Greifswald, Germany webpage Wendelstein 7-X wikipedia page W7X first plasma Lecturer introduced by Prof Steven Cowley FRS	Fusion Energy with a Twist According to Ampere's law, curl B = J, an electric current produces rotation of magnetic field lines. For instance, if a current is made to flow along a straight magnetic field, it acts to twist the field lines into helices. In 1951, Lyman Spitzer, a legendary Princeton astrophysicist, discovered that magnetic field lines may actually wind around each other even if J=0. Most physicists are astonished by this little-known result, which was later rediscovered in other guises, such as the "Berry phase" in quantum mechanics. Spitzer proposed to use it as a key to achieve fusion energy in the laboratory, where it provides the only practicable way to insulate a 100-million-degree plasma from the surroundings in steady state. His idea is now put to a billion-euro test by the Max Planck Society in the Wendelstein 7-X experiment, which has just started operation. In this lecture, I will give a simple account of Spitzer's insight and describe this latest experiment in the worldwide quest for fusion energy. Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Monday, March 7 (week VIII) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
19th Lecture Michaelmas 2015	Jonathan Flint CBE FREng CEO, Oxford Instruments plc webpage wikipedia Lecturer introduced by Prof Alan Barr	Physics in the City Tales from a decade of trying to explain how physics can be applied to generate wealth and build a better society. Breakthroughs in Physics form the foundation of much of the world's economy today. Oxford Instruments, the first commercial spin out from the University of Oxford, has, over 50 years, provided researchers and industrialists with the scientific tools to enable applied research and facilitate efficient production using advanced technologies that have been developed from that research. As a publicly listed company on the London Stock Market, Oxford Instruments has access to funds from the capital markets and is owned by its shareholders. However, most of its shareholders are not scientists and many City investors struggle with understanding basic scientific principles. If you should "only invest in what you understand," why should people invest in complex-technology companies? How far should you simplify science for the non-experts and still expect them to make informed decisions? Is a little understanding better than none? Over the past ten years as Chief Executive of Oxford Instruments, a big part of my role has been to explain how I believe scientific advances will drive societal change and yield sound investment opportunities. I will give examples of some the technological instruments designed and manufactured by Oxford Instruments, and how I have endeavoured to explain them, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Monday, November 30 (week VIII) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall After dinner all are welcome to the MCR Sign up on Facebook
18th Lecture Trinity 2015	Professor Cary Forest Visiting Research Fellow,    Merton College Professor of Physics,    University of Wisconsin,    Madison, USA webpage Madison Plasma Dynamo Experiment Lecturer introduced by Prof Steven Cowley FRS	Magnetised Universe in a Plasma Lab Everywhere we look in the Universe, we see turbulent, magnetised plasma. Magnetic fields not only provide a means of observing this plasma (through synchrotron emission detected by radio telescopes) but also play a fundamental role in a number of dramatic phenomena throughout the cosmos, such as accretion onto black holes and generation of radio jets on scales of hundreds of times the size of galaxies, cosmic-ray acceleration, gamma-ray bursts from magnetars and massive solar bursts observed from both our Sun and other stars. Plasma physics governs these processes. In my lab, I build plasma devices that can mimic, in some ways, astrophysical processes so that we can study them, in situ, as physicists, rather than simply observing. Advances in plasma confinement and heating technology, and diagnostic techniques for measuring the properties of these plasmas (many of which have been developed in the pursuit of nuclear fusion as an energy source), are now being used in the rapidly developing field of laboratory plasma astrophysics. I will describe three experiments we have built and are now operating. The first addresses the self-generation of magnetic field by plasma flow, a process known as the plasma dynamo. The second is focused on understanding how magnetic fields catalyse accretion of matter onto central objects such as black holes or protostellar/protoplanetary disks. The third investigates the phenomenon of "magnetic reconnection," which allows immense amounts of magnetic energy to be released explosively (as happens in the solar flares on in gamma-ray bursts from magnetars). Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Wednesday, May 6 (week II) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
17th Lecture Hilary 2015	Professor Dr Yuri Manin Professor Emeritus,    Max Planck Institute for Mathematics,    Bonn, Germany Board of Trustees Professor Emeritus,    Northwestern University,    Evanston, USA Principal Researcher,    Steklov Mathematical Institute,    Russian Academy of Sciences,    Moscow, Russia webpage wikipedia an interview Lecturer introduced by Prof Minhyong Kim	Physics in the World of Ideas: Complexity as Energy In the 1930's, George Kinsley Zipf discovered an empirical statistical law that later proved to be remarkably universal. Consider a corpus of texts in a given language, make the list of all words that occur in them and the number of occurences. Range the words in the order of diminishing frequencies. Define the Zipf rank of the word as its number in this ordering. Then Zipf's Law says: "Frequency is inversely proportional to the rank". Zipf himself suggested that that this law must follow from the principle of "minimisation of effort" by the brain. However, the nature of this effort and its measure remained mysterious. In my lecture, I will argue that Zipf's effort needed to produce a word (say, name of the number) must be measured by the celebrated "Kolmogorov complexity": the length of the shortest Turing program (input) needed to produce this word/name/combinatorial object/etc. as its output. I will describe basic properties of the complexity (some of them rather counterintuitive) and one more situation from the theory of error-correcting codes, where Kolmogorov complexity again plays the role of "energy in the world of ideas." slides (pdf, 6Mb) Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Thursday, March 5 (week VII) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
16th Lecture Michaelmas 2014	Dr Aldo Faisal Senior Lecturer in Neurotechnology,    Department of Bioengineering    and Department of Computing,    Imperial College London Associated Investigator,    MRC Clinical Sciences Centre webpage lab webpage TEDx talk Lecturer introduced by Prof Alex Schekochihin	Breaking into Your Brain My group's research questions are centred on a basic characteristic of biological systems: noise, uncertainty or variability in behaviour. Variability can be observed across many levels of biological behaviour: from the movements of our limbs, the responses of neurons in our brain, to the interaction of biomolecules. Such variability is emerging as a key ingredient in understanding biological principles (Faisal, Selen & Wolpert 2008, Nature Rev Neurosci 9, 292) and yet lacks adequate quantitative and computational methods for description and analysis. Crucially, we find that biological and behavioural variability contains important information that our brain and our technology can make use of (instead of just averaging it away): the brain knows about variability and uncertainty and it is linked to its own computations. Therefore, we use and develop statistical machine learning techniques, to predict behaviour and analyse data. I will show a number of recent biological findings and novel technology we developed towards a statistical-physics-like theory of brain function. Video recording of the lecture The lecture on YouTube	Monday, October 27 (week III) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
15th Lecture Trinity 2014	Professor Paul Chaikin Silver Professor of Physics,    Center for Soft Condensed Matter Research,    New York University Member of the National Academy of Sciences, USA webpage lab webpage Lecturer introduced by Prof Julia Yeomans FRS	Some Small Steps Toward Artificial Life The properties we often associate with living things are motility, metabolism, self-replication and evolution. According to Richard Feynman: "What I can't create, I don't understand". We thought we'd give it a shot ---understanding life---and in the process we've made two different systems, one that exhibits both autonomous motility and metabolism and another which is the first artificial system that can replicate arbitrarily designed motifs. The first system, artificial swimmers, provides insight into many natural phenomena such as a flocking of birds and schooling of fish. The second system uses diurnal cycles of temperature and light and at present is doubling each cycle, growing exponentially. It provides a new way of producing many, many copies of nanoscale devices and may give insights into the origin of conventional life on earth.  We even have initiated an elementary form of evolution. slides part 1 (pdf, 24Mb) slides part 2 (pdf, 21Mb)	Wednesday, May 21 (week IV) Mure Room 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
14th Lecture Hilary 2014	Alan Bond Managing Director and Chief Engineer,    Reactor Engines Ltd, UK webpage webpage (interview) wikipedia Lecturer introduced by Prof Steven Cowley	Beyond the Jet Engine Continuous research in the UK over the past three decades has now reached the stage where a hybrid air breathing and rocket engine capable of powering an aircraft single stage to orbit and returning it for reuse is possible. The central technologies for this have been demonstrated by Reaction Engines in an industrial environment and the programme has now entered a critical hardware development phase. The SKYLON spaceplane with its SABRE engines will transform access to space by making it economic, reliable and user friendly with on-demand launch capability. In short, the spaceship of the 1950s comics is almost with us. This presentation will cover the principles of the vehicle and its engines, the development programme to realise it and the implications for both the exploration and the exploitation of space for the benefit of humanity back home. The lecture on YouTube	Monday, March 3 (week VII) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
13th Lecture Michaelmas 2013	Professor Frans Pretorius Professor of Physics,    Princeton University Distinguished Research Chair,    Perimeter Institute Simons Investigator webpage Lecturer introduced by Prof James Binney FRS	Black Holes and Fundamental Physics Black holes are perhaps the most remarkable prediction of Einstein's theory of general relativity. They are one-way membranes in the fabric of space and time, hiding singularities that exert infinitely strong tidal forces. I will begin by giving a brief history of the development of our theoretical understanding of black holes, and the astronomical discoveries that lead to the realisation that they likely exist in the universe and play an important role in many astrophysical processes. As if this were not enough, over the past few years theoretical advances inspired by string theory are suggesting that general relativity, and in particular black holes "know" much more about fundamental physics that just gravity. As hinted at by earlier discoveries of black hole mechanics and Hawking radiation, black holes have thermodynamic properties. Perturbations of horizons are hydrodynamic in nature, even into the non-linear regime where they can exhibit instabilities and turbulent behaviour reminiscent of fluid flows. Fluctuations of black hole geometries can, by holographic projection, be interpreted as describing states of certain quantum field theories. These same setups can be engineered to come up with model systems exhibiting properties of condensed matter systems, such as superconductors. I do not know whether there are deeper physical or philosophical reasons for these connections, though these examples hint that black holes could be become a cornerstone of 21st century physics. slides (pdf, 3Mb)	Monday, December 2 (week VIII) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
12th Lecture Trinity 2013	The 1st Ockham Debate Professor Simon Saunders Professor of Philosophy of Physics,    University of Oxford Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford webpage wikipedia vs. Professor James Binney FRS Fellow of the College Professor of Physics, Director, R. Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics,    University of Oxford webpage wikipedia Debate moderated by Dr Alan Barr and Dr Ralf Bader	The Problem of Quantum Measurement Quantum mechanics is part deterministic, part probabilistic. According to the "standard" quantum theory, states evolve with certainty between measurements, but "collapse" randomly when we measure them. But what is measurement? And why does it (appear to) enjoy a privileged position in the theory? The measurement problem has been one of the hottest topics in physics ever since quantum theory was proposed and, despite much progress, remains so today. This Occam meeting will for the first time offer the different perspectives of not one but two expert speakers. Prof Saunders is a leading proponent of the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, which argues that the Universe we see it is emergent, and constantly subject to "splitting" including during measurements. Prof Binney advocates an alternative programme, suggesting that we should gain insight into measurement by better understanding the dynamics of the system's interactions with the measuring apparatus. We anticipate a lively debate. The full debate (including Q&A) on YouTube	Monday, May 13 (week IV) TS Eliot LT 16:45 Reception 17:15 Debate 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
11th Lecture Hilary 2013	Dr Anthony Hansen Merton College (1969) President, Magee Scientific Corporation,    Berkeley, California webpage (another webpage) Greetings from the South Pole (2.02.13) Lecturer introduced by Prof Michael Baker	From Excitons to Soot: the Unexpected Outcome of a Physics Education After a "traditional" Ph.D. in solid-state physics, random chance led me to a newly-formed research group studying---and defining---the properties of the "soot particle." Neither boson nor lepton, this pollutant, once considered an obsolete relic of the Coal Age, turns out to be the number-2 driver of global climate change; the number-1 driver of Arctic and Himalayan melting; and the number-1 indicator of the adverse health effects of combustion exhaust.  In addition to killing babies and submerging Florida, black particles also soil artwork, can trace the penetrability of buildings to biological attack, and can defeat directed-energy laser weapons.  The development of real-time techniques to measure "Black Carbon" led to a great increase in research in these areas; to a niche business; and to field projects from Siberia to Calcutta to the South Pole.  This talk will use the above points as illustrations of how the principles of a Physics education can be applied to a "dirt" problem, with real-world consequences. slides (pdf, 13.8Mb) Challenge questions Merton flag at the South Pole	Monday, February 25 (week VII) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
10th Lecture Michaelmas 2012	Professor Sir John Beddington CMG FRS Merton SCR Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Goverment Professor of Applied Population Biology,    Imperial College London webpage wikipedia Lecturer introduced by Prof Steven Cowley	Dealing with Risks and Emergencies in Government Risk in government is pervasive. In the short term, managing emerging crises, natural or terrorist driven, involves risk assessment and dealing with an emergency in real time. At a longer time scale, risk needs to be assessed in areas including technological change, emerging diseases of humans, animals and plants and the long-term emerging issues of climate change or food, water and energy security.	Monday, November 26 (week VIII) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 18:30 Q&A 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
9th Lecture Trinity 2012	Professor Frank Arntzenius Professor of Philosophy,    University of Oxford Sir Peter Strawson Fellow in Philosophy,    University College, Oxford webpage Lecturer introduced by Prof Sir Ralph Wedgwood	Is the World Geometric or Algebraic? The Ancient Greeks regarded geometry and algebra as two quite separate mathematical subjects. It was principally Fermat and Descartes who combined the two into coordinate-geometry, which since then has played an enormous role in the development of physics. I will discuss to what extent one should think that the physical structure of the world is geometric or algebraic. slides (pdf, 230 kb)	Monday, May 21 (week V) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
8th Lecture   Hilary 2012	Professor Katherine Blundell Professor of Astrophysics, University Research Fellow of the Royal Society,    University of Oxford Senior Research Fellow, St John's College, Oxford webpage Lecturer introduced by Prof James Binney FRS	Black Holes and Spin Offs	Monday, January 23 (week II) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
7th Lecture Michaelmas 2011	Professor Mark Newman Merton College (1985) Paul Dirac Collegiate Professor of Physics,    University of Michigan at Ann Arbor webpage wikipedia Lecturer introduced by Prof James Binney FRS	Physics in Unexpected Places: What Physics Has to Say About Social Networks, Cartography, and Space Aliens Many ideas and techniques developed by physicists turn out to have applications outside the traditional realm of physics. In recent years physicists have made major contributions in computer science, economics, biology, and other fields. In this talk I will describe a number of projects I have worked on that fall in the general area known as "complex systems", including work on computer models of social networks, new methods for making maps based on the physics of diffusion, and a simple physical proof that could explain why we've never heard from any extraterrestrials---and why we never will. slides (pdf, 4 Mb)	Sunday, October 16 (week I) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Savile Room (separate sign up!) Sign up on Facebook
6th Lecture   Trinity 2011	Professor Sir Anthony Leggett FRS Merton College (1958) Honorary Fellow of the College John and Catherine MacArthur Professor and Center for Advanced Study Professor of Physics,    University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Nobel Prize (2003) webpage wikipedia Lecturer introduced by Prof Michael Baker	Why Can't Time Run Backwards? We can all tell when a movie of some everyday event, such as a kettle boiling or a glass shattering is run backwards. Similarly, we all feel that we can remember the past and affect the future, not vice versa. So there is a very clear "arrow" (direction) of time built into our interpretation of our everyday experience. Yet the fundamental microscopic laws of physics, be they classical or quantum-mechanical, look exactly the same if the direction of time is reversed. So what is the origin of the "arrow" of time? This is one of the deepest questions in physics; I will review some relevant considerations, but do not pretend to give a complete answer. slides (pdf, 1.8 Mb)	Friday, May 6 (week I) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
5th Lecture   Hilary 2011	Professor Persis Drell Director,    SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (Stanford) webpage wikipedia Lecturer introduced by Prof Andrea Cavalleri	The Turn On of LCLS: The X-Ray Free-Electron Laser at SLAC On April 10, 2009, the world's first hard X-ray free-electron laser was brought to lasing. Producing an X-ray beam with more than a billion times higher peak brightness than the most powerful existing synchrotron sources, it marked the beginning of a new era of science. The Linac Coherent Light Source's (LCLS) pulses arrive at a rate of 60-120 Hz in an energy range from 480 eV to 10 keV, with pulse lengths as short as a few to about 300 femtoseconds. Since October 2009, users have been performing experiments at the LCLS. This talk will describe the LCLS and its unique new capabilities, followed by some examples of the first experiments, and finish with an outlook of future plans in the short as well as long term. slides (pdf, 7.4 Mb)	Monday, March 7 (week VIII) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
4th Lecture   Michaelmas 2010	Professor Dr Anton Zeilinger Professor of Experimental Physics,    University of Vienna Scientific Director,    Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information,    Austrian Academy of Sciences Wolf Prize (2010) webpage wikipedia facebook Lecturer introduced by Prof Artur Ekert	Quantum Games and Free Will A quantum magician can play tricks that are completely impossible for any classical magician. For example, two dice rolled at an arbitrary distance will show the same number, or balls hidden under a cup can show colors impossible in any classical scenario. These are just two examples of consequences of the challenges to classical reality in the quantum world. I will show in a very instructive way how such features and others follow from the basic features of quantum physics and what they teach us about reality and free will.	Monday, November 15 (week VI) TS Eliot LT 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
3rd Lecture Trinity 2010	Professor Artur Ekert Fellow of the College Professor of Quantum Physics,    Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford Lee Kong Chian Centennial Professor,    National University of Singapore Director, Centre for Quantum Technologies webpage wikipedia facebook Lecturer introduced by Dr Joe Fitzsimmons	Less Reality, More Security Human desire to communicate secretly is at least as old as writing itself and goes back to the beginnings of our civilisation. Over the centuries many ingenious methods of secret communication have been developed, only to be matched by the ingenuity of code-breakers. As the result, the quest for a perfect, unbreakable, cipher, had been declared a futile pursuit. That is, until recently! Surprisingly, a combination of quantum physics and cryptography promises to dash the hopes of would-be eavesdroppers, perhaps for good. Code-makers, it seems, may have beaten code-breakers at last. In my talk I will focus on the quest for perfect secrecy. I will describe how people tried to protect communication in the past, how it is done today, and I will speculate how it may be done in the future. Physics plays increasingly more important role in this field simply because the process of sending and storing of information is always carried out by physical means. In particular, eavesdropping can be viewed as a measurement on a physical object, in this case the carrier of the information. What an eavesdropper can measure, and how, depends exclusively on the laws of physics. I will explain how, using quantum phenomena, physicists managed to design and to implement a system which is regarded to be unbreakable. Moreover, recent research shows that security of communication can be guaranteed by peculiar "non-local" correlations, no matter whether they are of quantum origin or not. Bell's inequality alone makes seemingly insane scenario possible---devices of unknown or dubious provenance, even those that are manufactured by our enemies, can be safely used for secure communication! I will provide a brief overview of the intriguing connections between Bell's inequality and cryptography.     Recommended reading: semi-popular article titled "Less reality, more security"; abbreviated version published in Physics World, September 2009. slides (pdf, 13.5 Mb)	Tuesday, May 25 (week V) TS Eliot LT (first ever event in the new LT!) 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall Sign up on Facebook
2nd Lecture Hilary 2010	Professor Lord May of Oxford FRS Emeritus Fellow of the College Professor, Department of Zoology,    University of Oxford President of the Royal Society (2000-05) Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government (1995-2000) webpage wikipedia Lecturer introduced by Prof James Binney FRS	Systemic Risk: The Dynamics of the Banking System The recent banking crises have made it clear that increasingly complex strategies for managing risk in individual banks and investment funds (pension funds, etc.) has not been matched by corresponding attention to overall systemic risks. Simple mathematical caricatures of "banking ecosystems", which capture some of the essential dynamics and which have some parallels (along with significant differences) with earlier work on stability and complexity in ecological food webs, have interesting implications. In particular, strategies that tend to minimise risk for individual banks can---under certain circumstances---maximise the probability of systemic failure. This talk will first sketch these models and then discuss some of the ensuing conclusions. slides (pdf, 3.2 Mb)	Monday, February 22 (week VI) Mure Room 17:00 Reception 17:30 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall
1st Lecture Michaelmas 2009	Professor Steven Cowley Merton SCR Director, Culham Centre for Fusion Energy CEO, United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority Professor of Plasma Physics,    Imperial College London webpage wikipedia TED talk Lecturer introduced by Dr Alex Schekochihin	Science and Technical Challenges of Fusion Power slides (pdf, 14.6Mb)	Monday, November 23 (week VII) Mure Room 17:15 Reception 17:45 Lecture 19:15 Dinner in Hall