NEWS: CheltSciFest & WinSciFest

The hotels are booked. The speaker information forms are in*. The programme‘s been printed, perused and packed. It’s nearly time for The Times Cheltenham Science festival.

 This year, Andrew Pontzen and I will be bringing our show “Dark Matters” to the festival:

• Tuesday 12th June 2012, 2pm: #DarkMatters in the EDF Arena – details and tickets;
• Tuesday 12th June 2012, 8pm (7:30pm doors): #DarkMatters at Cheltenham SitP, D-Fly – details;
• Saturday 16th June 2012, 8:30pm: “What is Dark Matter?” – Cheltenham Editions event in the ExperiTent – details and tickets.

There’s a review of the Edinburgh Science Festival performance here from Elaine Downs. I’ll also be chairing a few events around the festival, and I suspect there may well be some live-tweeting – follow the #CheltSciFest hashtag. You can also catch Andrew at Robin Ince‘s Bad Book Club on the Friday.

On top of that, #DarkMatters will also be at the inaugural Winchester Science Festival (20/21/22 July 2012):

• Saturday 21st July 2012, 12pm: #DarkMatters at @WinSciFest – details and tickets (click on Sat 21st July).

Hope to see you there!

* They got there eventually.

TEDxHull – “How Do You Kill a Theory?” Video

After coming back from yesterday’s #TEDxImperialCollege, I finally plucked up the courage to watch the TEDx talk I gave at February’s #TEDxHull. All ten videos from Hull’s first (and, I must say, perfectly executed) TEDx event were released online last week. My talk, which opened the day’s proceedings, is embedded below:

 

However, I really would recommend watching all of them. I thought that one of the best things about the day was how the theme of “Beyond Limits” threaded through each of the speakers‘ chosen topics, even with such a wide variety of subjects on offer. I think that’s a testament to the organisers’ shrewd selection process, and their incredibly helpful and constructive feedback in the weeks leading up to the event. The #TEDxHull team did a fantastic job, and if they captured the spirit of Hull in the same way that #TEDxImperialCollege so successfully embodied everything I’ve come to appreciate about my employer, they really have done Hull very proud indeed. It was an honour and a pleasure to take part.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the talk. It’s very much a supersymmetric extension of my FameLab winning talk**. There’s plenty of Large Hadron Collider, all-permeating supercustard, and the very nature of science itself, but (mainly thanks to @jellybabyfizzer‘s influence) there’s even a shout-out for Thomas Kuhn***. Huge thanks to Gareth Moulton of CurvedLight for editing the videos together.

IN OTHER NEWS: I’ll be performing at the wonderful Helen Arney‘s “Domestic Science” show on Tuesday – full details (and tickets) here. Hope to see you there!

 

 

* And I really hope it is the first of many.

** Talking of which – congratulations to Andrew Steele, who is (as of Wednesday 21st March) the new FameLab champion!

*** I may, or may not, come perilously close to suggesting that supersymmetry represents a “crisis point” in particle physics.

NEWS: Science Showoff and TEDx Hull

At the risk of posting something that should probably start with “Just a quick update!“*: I’ll be performing at Science Showoff at the Wilmington Arms on Wednesday 7th December 2011, where I’ll be talking about the Higgs Boson and how some choice quotes in this BBC article will probably lead to some people not getting all that much sleep before Christmas.

Science Showoff is, as compère Steve Cross has noted himself, very much in the Ronseal category of science communication events. It is, you might say, an “open mic [night] for all communicators of science”. It’s somewhere for those who [do/like/love] science to “show-off” [what they do with/why the like/their love of] science. It is run by Louise, Helen and Steve, the last two shows have been brilliant, and (most importantly) it is all for charity. December’s show is in aid of The Calthorpe Project, an ultra-local community garden who run all sorts of activities for residents near the pub. Science Showoff suggests a £5 donation on the night, but if you can’t make it and you want to support the project you can donate online here.

I’m also pleased to announce that I’ll be speaking at TEDx Hull in February 2012, which is run by John Royle of Glanton Solutions Ltd. I’ll post a bit more about it nearer the time, but for those of you who were there at the FameLab 2009 Oxford Regional Final**, I might have to make an emotional visit to North Ferriby while I’m there.

* I’d do something more substantial, but http://tomwhyntie.wordpress.com is new and needed at least one post to avoid the “Nothing Found” message; a rare example of where finding nothing isn’t actually the best possible result.

** Yes, all of you.