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The Society has setup a YouTube channel to allow members and the public watch again those recent lectures that we have recorded from Zoom.  This collection will grow over time and it is hoped that once we can resume lectures in person at University of Strathclyde we will still be able to record and share lectures on YouTube.

Dr Fabio Biancalana, School of Engineering & Physical Sciences, Institute of Photonics and Quantum Sciences, Heriott-Watt University will present the Society's annual Tannahill Lecture on "Black Holes: 100 Years of Mysteries" online via Zoom.

"I will describe the famous `Hawking radiation', the slow emission of energy by a black hole, which is allowed by the laws of quantum mechanics. This process is so important in modern physics that it has the potential to tell us something about the real constituents of spacetime. In the talk, I will also discuss various interesting and truly bizarre (but serious) topics at the forefront of black hole physics - the culmination of more than 100 years of research"

Biography:  Dr Fabio Biancalana graduated in Particle Physics at the University of Rome III in 2001. His PhD project was on optical fibres and solitons in optical systems. After winning a couple of postdoctoral grants in Ireland and the UK, in 2009 he moved to the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Germany, where he led a group on nonlinear optics. In 2013 he moved to Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, where he studies the many analogies and connections between optics, particle physics and general relativity. His most recent work on pure black holes has been recently reported by the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-47773553

Login details will be provided here before the event.

The lecture will start promptly at 1930

The ASG will run its absolute beginner’s course online instead of at Acre Road Observatory.  This informal course will run on the second Thursday of each month starting on 8th October 2020.  Due to Covid-19 restrictions this course will be on line Zoom meeting. 

Due to personal circumstances the class scheduled for Thursday 14th January 2021 has been postponed.  The meeting will be rescheduled for the end of January or beginning of February - we will post a new zoom link then.

The course syllabus runs as follows: -

1.        The Night Sky and finding your way around it.
2.        Telescopes and Binoculars
3.        The Solar System, Planets, Comets and Meteors
4.        The Sun
5.        Faint Fuzzies - Clusters, Nebulae and Galaxies
6.        Any Questions?

 


Dr Queenie Chan answers questions after her successful lecture
entitled "Meteorites and the Search for Life", September 2019
Image: Paul Makin

The ASG's free public lectures for the 2020-21 session are as follows. Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic our normal venue at University of Strathclyde is closed and public lecture will instead be held online via Zoom.  Access links for the Zoom sessions will be posted below before each lecture.  All lectures start at 19:30