Public events : Public Engagement : ... : Physics and Astronomy Department : University of Sussex

Here are details of public events organised by the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Sussex.

Upcoming Public talks & Lectures

Details of our upcoming public talks can now be found at the Sussex Universe website.

Travel advice

For events at the University of Sussex campus, directions can be found in either our travel advice PDF document, or on our central University directions webpage, and while we recommend travelling by train or bus to the campus, car parking on campus is free after 5pm.

A campus map to the Fulton A lecture theatre is also available.

Do please contact us in advance if you have any access requirements. We can provide you with a step-free access map in advance, or get one of our student volunteers to guide you around campus on the evening itself.

Members of the general public are welcome and encouraged to attend both our Institute of Physics (South-Central Branch) & Sussex Universe series of lectures, which are designed to be accessible and understandable to all (see our recorded lectures page to watch past talks).

For in-person lectures, we usually have between 30 and 150 people attending, with the audience consisting of some of our undergraduate students, practicing and retired physicists, and local school & college students usually make up a third of the audience.

Science fairs & workshops

Lewes STEM fair poster We organise and run several science fairs throughout Sussex, including the Lewes STEMFest and Brighton Wonderfest - both celebrations of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) in the heart of East Sussex with the aim of inspiring the next generation to build careers in STEM disciplines and promoting local STEM activities to a wide audience.

Note: There are no public science fairs currently scheduled.

Past Talks & Events

	Many videos from previous talks are available to watch on the Sussex Universe YouTube channel.
		Sussex Universe series: Autumn 2023 A PDF version of the Sussex Universe talk program for Autumn 2023 is available for you to download.
		Monday 9^th October, 2023 - 6pm Fulton A lecture theatre Simulating the first galaxies: A tale of birds and bug fixes Dr Will Roper School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences A PDF poster is available for you to advertise this talk.
		Monday 23^rd October, 2023 - 6pm Fulton A lecture theatre Digital Sensing in Major Depression Dr Faith Matcham School of Psychology A PDF poster is available for you to advertise this talk.
		Monday 6^th November, 2023 - 6pm Fulton A lecture theatre Catching ghosts: First neutrino observation and new searches for Dark Matter at the Large Hadron Collider Dr Josh McFayden School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences A PDF poster is available for you to advertise this talk.
		Monday 20^th November, 2023 - 6pm Fulton A lecture theatre Is waste heat a wasted opportunity? Dr Martin White School of Engineering and Informatics A PDF poster is available for you to advertise this talk.
		Monday 4^th December, 2023 - 6pm Fulton A lecture theatre Hand to Mouth: The Language Puzzle Prof. Gillian Forrester School of Psychology A PDF poster is available for you to advertise this talk.
	Sussex Universe series: Spring 2023 A PDF version of the Spring 2023 talk program is available for you to download. Please note that the dates of some lectures have changed due to industrial action.
	Thursday 2^nd February, 2023 - 6pm Fulton A lecture theatre Cosmology in crisis: Galaxy clusters to the rescue Dr Paul Giles School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences A PDF poster is available for you to advertise this talk. (Set up a reminder using EventBrite)
	*Friday 17^th February, 2023 - 6pm Fulton B* lecture theatre** Dynamical systems: attractivity, chaos and predicting the future Prof Peter Giesl School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences A PDF poster is available for you to advertise this talk. Please note that the date of this lecture has changed due to industrial action. (Set up a reminder using EventBrite)
	Thursday 9^thMarch, 2023 - 6pm Fulton A lecture theatre Will virtual patients help us choose the right treatments? Dr Simon Mitchell Brighton & Sussex Medical School A PDF poster is available for you to advertise this talk. Please note that the date of this lecture has changed due to industrial action. (Set up a reminder using EventBrite)
	*Thursday 23^rd March - 6pm Fulton B* lecture theatre** Bringing Large Hadron Collider data to the world Dr Kate Shaw School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences A PDF poster is available for you to advertise this talk. Please note that the date of this lecture has changed due to industrial action. (Set up a reminder using EventBrite)
	Thursday 30^th March - 6pm Fulton A lecture theatre Quantum Chemistry: Two's company, three's a crowd. Prof. Hazel Cox School of Life Sciences A PDF poster is available for you to advertise this talk. (Set up a reminder using EventBrite)
	On Wednesday 6th of July 2022 we celebrated 10 years since the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson with an evening lecture on campus at the University of Sussex. A recording of the lecture is available on YouTube via this link. It's 10 years since the Nobel prize winning discovery of the Higgs boson, one of the crowning glories of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. It was sometimes described as the last piece of the jigsaw in our understanding of fundamental particles and their interactions, but in fact the discovery was only the beginning of exploring a new and even more exciting puzzle! This talk will discuss how the Higgs was discovered, the incredible depth of studies performed to learn more about this new particle, and how looking forward our understanding of the Higgs boson could unlock some of the key unanswered questions in physics; from why we are here, to the origin of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Presented by Royal Society University Research Fellow Dr. Josh McFayden (University of Sussex). Josh is an experimental particle physicist working on the ATLAS Experiment and the FASER Experiment, both based at the Large Hadron Collider, LHC, at CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) in Geneva, Switzerland.
	IOP-SCB: 2019-2020 programme The 2019/20 IOP-SCB series of talks include: 8th October 2019: “Is Life Quantum Mechanical? The dawn of quantum biology” by Prof Jim Al Khalili 12th November 2019: “The Science of Climate Change” by Prof Joanna Haigh 10th December 2019: “Haptic Devices for Teaching and Learning with Touch Technologies” by Prof Margaret Cox 11th February 2020: “From Terabytes to Insights: Extracting meaning from Big Data in biomedical imaging” by Dr Martin Jones
	IOP-SCB: October 2019, Sussex lecture Is Life Quantum Mechanical? The dawn of quantum biology by Prof Jim Al Khalili, University of Surrey Tuesday 8th October 2019, 7 - 8pm Lecture Theatre 1A7, Pevensey 1 building, University of Sussex [Map with directions] This lecture introduces the exciting new field of Quantum Biology. Quantum mechanics is familiar to physicists and chemists, but biologists too have to think about this strange yet powerful theory of the subatomic world. There is now solid evidence that enzymes, those metabolic workhorses that drive much of the action in our cells, use quantum tunnelling to accelerate chemical reactions. Plants use quantum coherence - sending lumps of energy in many directions at once - to calculate the most efficient route for sunlight to get to their photosynthetic cells. Some birds appear to use quantum entanglement - what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” - to ‘see’ the Earth’s magnetic field for navigation.
	IOP-SCB: November 2019 The Science of Climate Change by Prof Joanna Haigh, Imperial College, London Tuesday 12th November 2019, 7 - 8pm Lecture Theatre 1A7, Pevensey 1 building, University of Sussex (A map showing the location of the lecture theatre can be found in the Travel Advice section above.) The world is warming faster that has ever been observed in the past. Overwhelmingly scientists are of the opinion that this is largely due to the effect of gases released into the atmosphere by human activities. How can we be sure of this? And what can we say about the future? This talk will look at the scientific evidence for climate change and discuss how increasing concentrations of “greenhouse gases”, especially carbon dioxide, create an imbalance in the Earth’s energy budget with impacts on temperature, sea level and weather patterns. We will see how physics is used to construct computer models to investigate what this may mean for the future, and consider what needs to be done to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in order for the world to avoid dangerous levels of warming.
	IOP-SCB: December 2019 Haptic Devices for Teaching and Learning with Touch Technologies by Prof Margaret Cox, King’s College London Tuesday 10th December 2019, 7 - 8pm Lecture Theatre 1A7, Pevensey 1 building, University of Sussex (A map showing the location of the lecture theatre can be found in the Travel Advice section above.) Haptics, which mean the sense of touch, has been a growing aspect of technology in education and training and across society at large. Haptic devices, developed by physicists, include touch screens, hand held devices and robots which are not only found in the smart phone in your pocket but are widely used in medicine, dentistry, veterinary science, physics and computer games. This lecture will show how such devices are revolutionizing the way students and professionals learn. It will include a wide range of examples of haptic technologies being developed across the world for use in education and health care, and explore the ways in which these technologies will change our lives for the better.,/p>
	IOP-SCB: February 2020 From Terabytes to Insights: Extracting meaning from Big Data in biomedical imaging by Dr Martin Jones, The Francis Crick Institute, London Tuesday 11th February 2020, 7 - 8pm Fulton A Lecture Theatre, University of Sussex [Map]. Modern microscopes used in biology are marvels of physics and engineering, capable of producing unprecedented amounts of data -terabyte scale datasets now routine. Extracting insights from this deluge of complex data is extremely challenging, and traditional analysis techniques simply don’t scale well enough to cope. This talk will explore a range of different imaging techniques to learn about biology in ever-increasing detail, and the significant challenges for scientists hoping to make new discoveries. Using techniques from physics, engineering and computer science to acquire and analyse data at these huge scales, we will also look to the future to see how we might deal with datasets as they get even larger.
	For reference, here is a list of the past talks in the IOP lecture series here at Sussex. 2018-19 IOP series 2017-18 IOP series 2016-17 IOP series 2015-16 IOP series 2014-15 IOP series 2013-14 IOP series