Everyone is welcome. This conference is in-person and livestreamed online.

Apparent paradoxes in the physical descriptions of the natural world around us and in the perceived cosmos have existed since antiquity. These have grown in sophistication as the field of physics has developed over the centuries and with the advent of the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics in particular.

This conference will examine several paradoxes in physics from across the centuries and will scrutinise how the fundamental physics and mathematics underpinning them may help to resolve these.

Registration to attend this conference is free but booking is required to attend the conference either in person or online as below.

IN-PERSON ATTENDANCE INCLUDING THE CONFERENCE DINNER

ONLINE LIVESTREAMING ON YOUTUBE

The programme for the day is below:

MORNING CHAIR: TBC

10.30 am WELCOME

10.40 am Professor Angie Hobbs (University of Sheffield) – Can we move? Zeno the Dialectician

11.30 am Professor Anastasia Fialkov (University of Cambridge) – Olbers’ Paradox: Why the Night Sky is Dark

12.20 pm Professor Ian Ford (University College London) – Maxwell’s Demon and the Second Law of thermodynamics: Breaker or Faker?

1.15 pm LUNCH BREAK

AFTERNOON CHAIR: TBC

2.15 pm Professor Nikk Effingham (University of Birmingham) – The Grandfather Paradox: What Philosophy Might Teach Us about Tachyons?

3.05 pm Professor Jeff Forshaw (University of Manchester) – The Black Hole Information Paradox: Black Holes and Why They Are So Important

4 pm TEA/COFFEE BREAK

4.30 pm SUMMARY OF THE DAY’S PROCEEDINGS – Professor James Ladyman (University of Bristol)

There will be a special conference dinner at St Cross College in the evening following the end of the conference with an after-dinner talk by Professor Sir Roger Penrose OM FRS, Nobel Laureate (University of Oxford) on the visual and mathematical paradoxes in the art of M.C. Escher. Booking to attend the conference dinner can be made here.