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About this talk

Inaugural Lectures are given by our Professors to celebrate and present their outstanding achievements in research, education, innovation and impact. Together they showcase the richness, range and academic excellence of King's College London. In this special event, we will be celebrating across Faculties in a joint Arts & Humanities and Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences inaugural. Thinking outside the container: spacetime philosophy for a new physics - Professor Eleanor Knox: The idea of space as the stage on which physical events play out dates at least as far back as the 5th century BC. The twentieth century saw a shift from theorising about space and time separately to thinking about spacetime, but the metaphor of spacetime as a stage or arena has continued. Twenty-first century physics looks likely to render this untenable – theories of quantum gravity do not appear to postulate spacetime as a fundamental container for physical contents. This talk examines an alternative way of thinking about spacetime based on the role that it plays in our physical theories – spacetime philosophy should focus on what spacetime does, rather than what it is. Big Quantum: the crazy mission to explore quantum mechanics at the nanoscale - Professor James Millen: Do you believe in quantum physics? To the best of our knowledge, it describes everything in nature, yet the popular conception is that quantum effects only manifest at the tiniest scales. The predictions of quantum mechanics often feel unintuitive, could they possibly hold at the human level? In recent years an exciting new research community has formed trying to address this question in the lab, by levitating microscopic objects in vaccum. These experiments hope to uncover quantum behaviour at the scale of nanotechnology and biology, and to answer questions about the quantum nature of gravity in the lab. I will present the history of this field, my part in it, and where it is headed.

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