Prof Stephen Hawking, the world famous scientist, is to announce a major development in his studies of black holes and time warping at an international conference in Dublin tomorrow.
It is understood he has solved a mystery that has puzzled physicists since the mid 1970s.
Prof Hawking was in the audience for Prof Kit Thorne's lecture at the RDS last night.
The Irish chairman, Mr Petros Florides, of Trinity College, Dublin, described the conference as the most important gathering in the world of general relativity.
Prof Thorne, Richard Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology, holds the rare accolade of twice winning bets placed with Prof Hawking. The first of these bets, made in 1975, was on the question of the existence of black holes. Prof Thorne, like Hawking, a leading mind on black holes, rose to prominence with his theories that suggest time travel may be possible. His key lecture, 'Probing the Universe and Black Holes with Gravitational Waves', presented last night, gave academics and science lovers a rare insight into the "unfolding of the new science of gravitational wave astronomy" from one of the central figures in this field.
Over 600 delegates from over 50 countries are in Dublin for the conference which runs all week. A spokesman told The Irish Times: "The choice of Dublin reflects the long association the city and Ireland generally has with the subject. In particular, the late JL Synge of the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies has had a huge influence in the areas of relativity and gravitation."