RAS Public Lecture: A Matter of Gravity

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A Matter of GravityDr Roberto Trotta (Imperial Collge London)(Venue: Royal Astronomical Society Lecture Theatre - to book email events@ras.org.uk) A century after Albert Einstein presented his revolutionary theory of General Relativity at the Prussian Academy of Science, his ground-breaking ideas about the nature of space-time have been —thus far— verified with exquisite precision.Award-winning science communicator and astrophysicist Roberto Trotta examines the implications of General Relativity for our cosmological models, and discusses possible alternatives explanations to puzzling astrophysical observations without invoking (as it is usually done) an unknown dark matter component. The experimental searches for direct detection of gravitational waves will be presented, and the momentous discoveries they might bring. Roberto Trotta is a theoretical cosmologist at Imperial College London, where he studies dark matter, dark energy and the Big Bang, and an STFC Public Engagement Fellow.Roberto is a passionate science communicator and the recipient of numerous awards for his research, outreach and art and science collaborations, including the Lord Kelvin Award of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the Michelson Prize of Case Western Reserve University.His award-winning first book for the public, "The Edge of the Sky: All you need to know about the All-There-Is", endeavours to explain the Universe using only the most common 1,000 words in English. Roberto was named as one of the 100 Global Thinkers 2014 by Foreign Policy, for "junking astronomy jargon". Booking is required for the evening lecture. We will be taking bookings from 31st January 2016, please email events@ras.org.uk to reserve a place after that date.