About this Event
Much of modern astronomy sounds a lot like science fiction - gravitational ripples in the fabric of spacetime, supermassive black holes hiding at the centre of galaxies, habitable exoplanets within the reach of our telescopes…are there any limits to what is out there?
In this lecture, astrophysicist Katy Clough will discuss some of the more exotic possibilities for astrophysical objects, including wormholes and warp drives. She will explain how these objects fit within our current understanding of physics, and what we expect the limits to be.
Whilst largely considered to be firmly in the category of fiction, such concepts are nevertheless based on solid scientific ideas about the curvature of spacetime from Einstein’s theory of general relativity. This theory is known to be hugely counter-intuitive, giving rise to singularities, event horizons and time dilation around black holes. In strong gravity regimes things behave very differently to the low gravity environment on the Earth, so our intuition, which is based on our everyday experience, can mislead us. Studying these objects can help us to challenge our understanding of what is “natural”, and better understand the extreme limits of gravitational theory.
Speaker Information: Katy Clough is a lecturer and Ernest Rutherford Fellow in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Queen Mary University of London. She studies systems with strong dynamical gravity using numerical simulations, including black holes and the early universe. She is part of the fundamental physics working group for the future space based gravitational wave detector, LISA. Katy’s first degree was in Engineering and her degree in Physics was obtained from the Open University whilst working as a chartered accountant. After her PhD at King’s College London she worked in Goettingen in Germany and in Oxford University in postdoctoral positions. She believes that science is for everyone and that there is no right way to be a scientist.
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Event image by James Webb telescope 'Phantom Galaxy' via NASA
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Royal Institution, 21 Albemarle Street, London, United Kingdom