Centre for Theoretical Cosmology News

CTC hosts major International Conference and Public Symposium on "Gravity and Black Holes"

The Centre for Theoretical Cosmology played host to two big events to (belatedly) mark Professor Stephen Hawking’s 75th birthday earlier in the year. The scientific conference was preceded on Sunday 2nd July by a Public Symposium featuring an afternoon of public lectures by four very distinguished scientists: Brian Cox, Gabriela González, Martin Rees, and Stephen Hawking himself. This event was attended by over 450 people and was watched by millions around the world, live-streamed by Discovery Science on its Facebook and YouTube pages (their statistics indicated that 3.75 million people accessed their websites during the four-hour symposium). In order to replay the talks, please follow these links:

https://www.facebook.com/YourDiscoveryScience/videos/1208229372633134/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hotwr3uUUD4

The symposium generated a considerable amount of media interest and links to selected news stories are listed below.

From Monday 3rd to Wednesday 5th July an international conference entitled “Gravity and Black Holes” was held to discuss recent advances in gravitational physics and cosmology. It was a particularly relevant time to hold such a conference following the LIGO Scientific Collaboration’s discovery of gravitational waves and the new window on the Universe that this has opened up. The event was attended by 180 people and featured talks from leading scientists from around the world. A summary report about the scientific conference can be found here:

http://www.ctc.cam.ac.uk/news/conference_report.pdf

And the technical talks can found here: 

http://www.ctc.cam.ac.uk/activities/stephen75/programme.php

Further links to media stories about the Public Symposium:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40461726

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/02/stephen-hawking-says-donald-trump-risks-turning-earth-venus/

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/stephen-hawking-i-never-expected-such-success-0qnsrs5r2

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-4659376/Stephen-Hawking-celebrates-75th-birthday-Cambridge-lecture.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephen-hawking-trumps-climate-policies-could-turn-earth-into-venus_us_5959b805e4b02734df332a1e

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/340476-stephen-hawking-trump-pulling-out-of-paris-agreement-could-push

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/stephen-hawking-75-birthday-symposium-13271134?service=responsive

http://www.irishnews.com/magazine/daily/2017/07/02/news/stephen-hawking-was-serenaded-with-a-belated-happy-birthday-after-a-talk-at-cambridge-university-1073385/

https://www.cnet.com/news/stephen-hawking-donald-trump-global-warming-president/

http://time.com/4843423/stephen-hawking-trump-climate-change/

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/hawking-trump-paris-decision-push-earth-brink-article-1.3295853

Here is a selection of photos from the symposium and conference:

Professor Gabriela González, representing the LIGO Consortium, described the recent discovery of gravitational waves.  (photo: Sir Cam)

Professor Martin Rees gave a lecture entitled “From Mars to the Multiverse”. (photo: Sir Cam)

Rajeeb Hazra, Vice-President of Intel, introducing Stephen Hawking (photo: Sir Cam)

Stephen Hawking reflected on “My Life in Physics” and the revolutionary advances that have taken place during this time (photo: Sir Cam)

Stephen Hawking (photo: Sir Cam)

Conference delegates attend a private exhibition of historical scientific papers at Trinity College’s Wren Library (photo: Tobias Baldauf)

Stephen Hawking attending the scientific conference (photo: Tobias Baldauf)

Photo: Phil Mynott

Professor Brian Cox (University of Manchester and CERN) spoke about “Our place in the Universe” (photo: Sir Cam)