Hawking, Nasa boss coming to SA

2008-02-22 14:42

Cape Town - World renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, Nobel laureates David Gross and George Smoot, and Nasa Administrator Michael Griffin, are coming to South Africa in May, a press release states.

According to the release, this was announced by Profs Hendrik Geyer (Interim Director of NITheP, the National Institute for Theoretical Physics), Fritz Hahne (Director of AIMS, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences) and Neil Turok, Professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge and Chair of the AIMS Council.

Turok, co-author of the popular science book Endless Universe and winner of the 2008 international TED prize for his role as "cosmologist and education activist" was instrumental in securing the participation of Hawking, Gross, Smoot and Griffin in two inauguration events on May 12 and 13.

Science and Technology Minister Mosibudi Mangena, whose department has been central to the establishment and funding of two new research centres, will deliver the opening addresses on these occasions.

The first event will launch the AIMS Research Centre - an extension to the postgraduate training programme in the mathematical sciences.

Hawking, Smoot and Griffin are reportedly scheduled to give public lectures at the Muizenberg Pavilion (near AIMS) on May 11.

The launch of NITheP will take place at the new Wallenberg Research Centre of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS).

Strengthening South Africa's bid

NITheP is a geographically distributed institute which also has regional centres at the Universities of KwaZulu-Natal and the Witwatersrand.

It is being positioned as a national and African user facility for theoretical physics and will provide theoretical underpinning for current national programmes including astrophysics, cosmology, nuclear and particle physics, quantum technologies, condensed matter physics and quantum optics.

The launching event will be followed by a three day workshop co-hosted by AIMS, NITheP, STIAS and the Newton Institute at Cambridge. It will focus on international developments in theoretical physics, and on state of the art cosmology in particular.

This event and the subsequent research programmes at AIMS and NITheP, which will include a focus on cosmology, are seen as significant developments in South Africa's science programme in general, and for its cosmology and astrophysics programmes in particular.

These programmes are intended to make significant contributions to the SALT programme, centred around the Southern Africa Large Telescope at Sutherland, and the announced MeerKAT programme which will establish a significant new radio telescope facility in the Karoo.

All of these developments should strengthen South Africa's bid to host the one billion dollar Square Kilometre Array (SKA) programme for which the country is now competing with Australia, the only other remaining finalist for this internationally funded radio telescope project.

Details of ticket sales will be announced later.

- News24