Manchester’s own ‘rock star scientist’ Prof Brian Cox will give an insight into the origins of the Universe at The University of Manchester on Thursday 9 October. As part of the Roscoe Penny Lecture season, Prof Cox from the School of Physics and Astronomy will talk about his work at CERN, the famous scientific research centre in Geneva.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Manchester’s own ‘rock star scientist’ Prof Brian Cox will give an insight into the origins of the Universe at The University of Manchester on Thursday 9 October. As part of the Roscoe Penny Lecture season, Prof Cox from the School of Physics and Astronomy will talk about his work at CERN, the famous scientific research centre in Geneva.
Prof Cox, who The Guardian recently dubbed “the acceptable face of physics“, will talk about the Large Hadron Collider based there, the experiments it will run, what it will hopefully tell us about the origin of the Universe and why it needs to be so big and expensive.
He will also seek to demystify the Higgs boson by explaining what it actually is, why it is so difficult to find – and indeed why physicists are so keen to find it.
Prof Cox and thousands of other scientists working on the LHC are hoping to recreate conditions in the Universe less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang and uncover some of its unsolved mysteries.
The Roscoe Penny Lecture series is named after Henry Enfield Roscoe, who in 1866 began a series of lectures to bring science to a wider audience for the cost of just one old penny. This initiative still exists today in the form of Courses For The Public.
From 1857 onwards, Roscoe was chair of chemistry at Owens College – the forerunner to the modern University of Manchester – where he remained for thirty years.
Prof Cox was previously a member of 90s pop act D:REAM. While still in the group Prof Cox was studying for his PhD at The University of Manchester. He played at the famous Labour Party victory celebration at the Royal Albert Hall in 1997.
These days, as well as carrying out his research at CERN, Prof Cox is a regular presenter on the BBC flagship science programme Horizon. He also acted as scientific advisor on the 2007 film Sunshine, directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland.
Professor Cox will lecture on The Origin of the Universe at 7.00pm on Thursday 9 October. The lecture, which costs £7 to attend, will take place in the main lecture theatre in the Samuel Alexander Building at The University of Manchester.
Notes for editors For more information please contact Alex Waddington, Media Relations Officer, The University of Manchester, Tel 0161 275 8387. A picture of Prof Cox is available on request.
Related Content
Release Date
This story was released on 2008-10-07. Please make sure to visit the official company or organization web site to learn more about the original release date. See our disclaimer for additional information.