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What is the universe actually made of, and why are we still missing most of it? Join us for a night that dives from the world’s most powerful particle smasher to deep underground detectors searching for something we can’t even see. Along the way, we’ll explore how cutting-edge physics shapes everyday technology, and why 85% of the cosmos remains one of science’s biggest open questions.
The Large Hadron Collider and You!
Marcus Maduri
(PhD Student, University of Birmingham)
What is the universe made of, and how do you even begin to find out? The Large Hadron Collider, the world's biggest single machine, was built to tackle the most fundamental questions we can ask about our existence. Buried 100 metres beneath the Swiss–French border and stretching for 27 kilometres, it accelerates fundamental particles to just under the speed limit of the universe, then smashes them together to reveal the hidden structure of reality. The impact of the Large Hadron Collider isn't as remote from everyday life as it seems. This talk will take you inside this extraordinary machine, and explore why it matters to all of us.
The Global Search for Dark Matter
Dr Lachlan Milligan
(Research Fellow, University of Birmingham)
Over a pint, I'll be taking you through a discussion of dark matter - a mysterious and unknown form of matter that makes up 85% of the universe - from the perspective of a particle physicist, alongside the global effort to understand its exact nature. Whilst there is plenty of cosmological and astrophysical evidence for dark matter, we have almost no understanding of what it actually consists of, or what particles constitute it. To uncover this mystery, experiments have been devised to attempt to detect it directly. We'll explore this effort, with a focus on one experiment here in the UK.
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