Murray Gell-Mann, one of the world's leading scientific minds, comes toDublin next month
The noted physicist and Nobel laureate, Murray Gell-Mann comes to Dublin on October 16th to deliver the inaugural Irish Times/Royal Irish Academy Hamilton Lecture. Free tickets to the event are now available for those wishing to attend this talk by one of the world's leading scientific minds.
Gell-Mann gave the world the fundamental subatomic particle known as the "quark", borrowing the word from James Joyce's novel, Finnegans Wake. He helped to place a structure on the apparently chaotic quark and other bits that make up the atom and its components, winning the Nobel Prize in physics in 1969 for his efforts.
He is professor and co-chairman of the science board of the Santa Fe Institute, New Mexico, and author of the popular science book, The Quark and the Jaguar, Adventures in the Simple and the Complex. His inaugural Hamilton Lecture is entitled, "On Hamilton, Bridges and Contemporary Science".
The lecture series, which is sponsored by DEPFA Bank plc, commemorates one of Ireland's greatest mathematicians, William Rowan Hamilton. October 16th was chosen for this lecture because it is the day in 1843 when Hamilton made his most important contribution, the creation of the quaternion (see below).
Hamilton was walking alongside the Royal Canal near Broombridge when a wholly new mathematical form that allows computation in four dimensions suddenly inspired him. He hastily began scratching his formulations on the bridge wall and today we commemorate this with a plaque mounted on the bridge.
The Irish Times and the Royal Irish Academy have joined DEPFA Bank plc to honour this discovery with the annual Hamilton Lecture. It represents an effort to make scientific research and discoveries accessible to the general public by holding talks designed for a lay audience.
Besides being a Nobel laureate, Prof Gell-Mann has received numerous awards for his research achievements and many honorary degrees. In 1988 he was listed on the UN's Environmental Programme Roll of Honour for Environmental Achievement and in 1994 he shared the 1989 Erice Science for Peace prize.
Although Gell-Mann is a theoretical physicist, his interests extend to many other subjects including natural history, historical linguistics, archaeology, history and creative thinking, all subjects connected with biological and cultural evolution.
The free lecture takes place at 7 p.m. on October 16th in the Burke Lecture Theatre, Arts Block, Trinity College Dublin. Because of limits on space, places must be booked in advance. To reserve a place, contact the academy at 01-6764222 or by email at tickets@ria.ie