The Future of Particle Physics: The Particle Physics Christmas Lecture

Professor John Womersley (STFC) gives the Particle Physics Christmas Lecture. In the past five years particle physicists have made major advances in understanding the nature of our universe – discovering the Higgs boson, and more recently detecting gravitational waves from a distant galaxy. Paradoxically we have also learned a lot more about what we don’t know: that the particles and forces we understand in ever greater detail make up only a small fraction of what’s in the cosmos, and that our theoretical prejudices about what remains to be discovered may have been very wrong. A new generation of ambitious experiments at accelerator laboratories, underground, and studying at the large scale structure of the universe will answer these questions – and surely open up others. I will also outline why it is essential that the country remains at the forefront of frontier research of this kind and how it contributes more broadly to society.

Om Podcasten

The Department of Physics public lecture series. An exciting series of lectures about the research at Oxford Physics take place throughout the academic year. Looking at topics diverse as the creation of the universe to the science of climate change. Features episodes previously published as: (1) 'Oxford Physics Alumni': "Informal interviews with physics alumni at events, lectures and other alumni related activities." (2) 'Physics and Philosophy: Arguments, Experiments and a Few Things in Between': "A series which explores some of the links between physics and philosophy, two of the most fundamental ways with which we try to answer our questions about the world around us. A number of the most pertinent topics which bridge the disciplines are discussed - the nature of space and time, the unpredictable results of quantum mechanics and their surprising consequences and perhaps most fundamentally, the nature of the mind and how far science can go towards explaining and understanding it. Featuring interviews with Dr. Christopher Palmer, Prof. Frank Arntzenius, Prof. Vlatko Vedral, Dr. David Wallace and Prof. Roger Penrose."