Professor John Ellis CBE

Big Bang scientist to launch new talk series

A top scientist who helped discover the Higgs Boson particle and worked extensively on the Large Hadron Collider will speak at Exeter Phoenix this Thursday (27 September).

At the launch event of a new series of talks called the Agile Rabbit, held in partnership with the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter, Professor John Ellis CBE will discuss critical questions about the Universe and our place within it.

Professor Ellis has dedicated his career to answering such questions by studying the fundamental constituents of matter using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which recreates the conditions in the first fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

It has enabled him to investigate what happened in the distant past, and suggests what may happen to the Universe in the distant future.

Other speakers confirmed for the Agile Rabbit series include Natalie Bennett, Yasmin Alibhai Brown, and Maurice Bloch.

John Puckey, one of the organisers, said: “These events bring some of the world’s leading thinkers to Exeter.

“There’s an exciting variety of speakers that we are looking forward to welcoming to Agile Rabbit over the coming months.”

Agile Rabbit is a platform that provides special events for the South-West and beyond to focus on ideas, global affairs and the natural and scientific world.

The events are set in contrasting venues across the South-West to provide quirky experiences, while maximising participation for all communities.

Professor Tim Lenton, Director of the Global Systems Institute, said: “We’re excited to be supporting this new series of talks.

“They give everyone an opportunity to engage with thought-leaders in an accessible, creative setting”.

The Global Systems Institute is already bringing together researchers from across the university, and experts, policymakers, businesses and students from around the world.

The institute – one of the largest of its kind in the world – aims to use expertise from a vast range of areas to help create a flourishing future through transformative research and education.

The talks in the Agile Rabbit series will be held at 6:15pm on the last Thursday of each month at Exeter Phoenix.

Professor Ellis’s talk this Thursday is already sold out, but tickets for future talks will appear on agile-rabbit.com  

Date: 24 September 2018