'In search of space and time'

Inaugural Lecture

In Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Adams' character Zaphod steps into the `total perspective vortex' in which he is shown in one instant the entire structure of physical reality. We take a peek into this vortex and discover that modern science is inconsistent and in fact fails at distances below a thousand million million million million millionth of a centimetre. To fill this fundamental `hole in science' we turn to mathematics to reassess more objectively what the deep structure of space and time, or geometry itself, should be. It is a quest that takes us far into algebra and the philosophy of reality, yet remains in contact with experimental test via new developments in quantum-gravity phenomenology.

Shahn Majid is Professor of Mathematics at Queen Mary, University of London. Trained as an undergraduate in Cambridge, he studied theoretical physics and pure mathematics at Harvard, obtaining his PhD in 1988. After a year in Swansea, he spent 10 years back in Cambridge as a Fellow of Pembroke College, before moving to Queen Mary. He is one of the pioneers of the modern theory of quantum algebra, with numerous articles and two textbooks in the field. His most recent project, with co authors including A. Connes and R. Penrose, is a popular science volume On Space and Time, currently in press.

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