THE RAMSDEN LECTURE
Wednesday, 14 April 2010, 7.00pm
Fusion Power - The Era of Burning Plasmas
Professor Steve Cowley
Director of UKAEA, Culham Laboratory
The international fusion experiment ITER will start operating in the south of France late in the next decade. This historic experiment will generate up to 500 megawatts of fusion power and provide a proof of principle for fusion energy. Fusion has the potential to provide a large fraction of our energy for millions of years—Professor Cowley will outline the scale of this promise.
Manchester Business School, Booth Street West, Manchester
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Thursday, 22 April 2010, 7.00pm
Pulsars and Extreme Physics
Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, President IoP
Visiting Professor of Astrophysics and Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford
Pulsars were discovered 35 years ago. What do we know about them now, and what have they taught us about the extremes of physics? They serve as extremely accurate clocks with which to carry out precision experiments in relativity. Created in cataclysmic explosions, pulsars are a (stellar) form of life after death. After half a billion revolutions most pulsars finally die, but amazingly some are born again to yet another, even weirder, afterlife. Pulsar research continues lively, delivering exciting, startling and almost unbelievable results!
Schuster Building, University of Manchester, Brunswick Street, Manchester
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Wednesday, 28 April 2010, 7.00pm
The Whitworth - 21st Century Gallery in the Park
Dr Maria Balshaw
Director, Whitworth Art Gallery
MANDEC, Higher Cambridge Street, Manchester
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