Dr. Michael Duff Abdus Salam Professor of Theoretical Physics Imperial College, London
General Public Lecture
“A Final Theory of Everything in the Universe?”
(abstract)
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 7:30pm in PSF 173
Department of Physics Colloquium
“Benchmarks on the Brane”
(abstract)
Thursday, February 14, 2008 4:00pm in PSF 101
MICHAEL DUFF gained his PhD in theoretical physics in 1972 at Imperial College, London, under Nobel Laureate
Abdus Salam. After postdoctoral fellowships in Trieste, Oxford, King’s College London, Queen Mary College London and
Brandeis, he returned to Imperial College in 1979 on a Science Research Council Advanced Fellowship and joined the faculty there
in 1980. He took leave of absence to visit the Theory Division in DERN, first in 1982 and then gain as a Staff Member from 1984 to
1987 when he became Senior Physicist. He has also held Visiting Professorships and Fellowships at the University of Texas, Austin;
the University of California, Santa Barbara, the University of Kyoto and the Isaac Newton Institute, University of Cambridge. He
took up his professorship at Texas A&M in 1988 and was appointed Distinguished Professor in 1992. In September 1999 he
moved to the University of Michigan, where he was Oksar Klein Professor of Physics. In 2001, he was elected first Director of the
Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics and was re-elected in 2004.
In 2005 he returned once more to Imperial as Professor of Physics and Principal of the Faculty of Physical Sciences. He was
appointed Abdus Salam Professor of Theoretical Physics in 2006.
Michael Duff’s interests lie in unified theories of the elementary particles, quantum gravity, supergravity, Kaluza-Klein
theory, superstrings, supermembranes and M-theory. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the Institute of
Physics, a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and Recipient fo the 2004 Meeting Gold Medal, El Colegio Nacional,
Mexico.
General Public Lecture
“A Final Theory of Everything in the
Universe?”
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 7:30pm in PSF 173
Abstract: The leading candidate for an all embracing theory, that would unify quantum mechanics and
Einstein’s general relativity and describe all physical phenomena from quarks to the Big Bang, is called
“M-theory”, where M stands for magic, mystery or membrane, according to taste. M-theory requires eleven
spacetime dimensions (the maximum permitted by supersymmetry of the elementary particles) and subsumes all five
ten-dimensional superstring theories. Is the M really the “final theory” ? We critically discuss the
evidence.
Department of Physics Colloquium
“Benchmarks on the
Brane”
Thursday, February 14, 2008 4:00pm in PSF 101
Abstract: Branes now occupy center stage in theoretical physics as microscopic components of M-theory, as
the higher-dimensional progenitors of black holes and as entire universes in their own right. Their history has been a checkered
one, however. We will list some of the milestones, starting with Dirac’s 1962 paper.
|
