Chris Phillips
|
Topic of Talk: The Science of Invisibility.
Abstract : This talk will start by looking at how we actually see things. Along the way some of the stranger aspects of Quantum theory will emerge,but in a way that is simple enough to helps us just what it is we have to do to stop something being seen, i.e. to make it disappear. If all goes well, the talk will culminate with the speaker making himself vanish in a “clever coat” demonstration.
About the speaker: Chris is a Physicist who got his Ph.D. using specialised lasers to study the sort of semiconductor crystals that nowadays make up our computers and ipods. They also which built the internet that allows them (and us!) to talk to each other. After a spell travelling, and working for the BBC, he joined the Physics Department at Imperial College as a Lecturer in 1985. Apart from a year at the University of Santa Barbara in California, he has stayed there ever since. |
 |
On the research front, he has recently he has become interested in using “Quantum Metamaterials”, crystals that are artificially structured on a length scale of one nanometre ( i.e. a thousand millionth of a metre), to generate new materials that e.g. have negative refractive indices, and which can be made to vanish when they are illuminated with an invisible laser.
Chris is a committed teacher and science communicator, whose lively lecturing style has led to numerous TV, radio and Newspaper appearances, and has won him many awards. He is a fan of live demonstrations in lectures, the more dramatic the better, and this talk will be no exception.
