A quick heads-up on some recent and upcoming events:

A couple of weeks ago, I delivered my long-delayed (if not actually long-awaited) inaugural lecture, “The Random Universe“. A video is currently available through Imperial College’s media library so you can hear me opine on how we learn about the history and evolution of the Universe (and my career thinking about those things). The squeamish may want to shut their eyes at about three minutes in to avoid a picture of me in a wetsuit….

On Tuesday, June 10, my friend and colleague Pedro Ferreira will be speaking at the London Review Bookshop about his new book, The Perfect Theory, a history of general relativity — Einstein’s theory of gravity
— and the controversies (and strong personalities stoking them) that have come along with our growing understanding of it. He’ll be talking with math-pundit Marcus du Sautoy and I know it will be a great discussion.

Finally, a reminder that a bit later on in the summer I’ll get to engage in some further punditry of my own: I’ll be speaking, again on “The Random Universe”, at the Gravity Fields Festival up in Grantham, Lincolnshire, where Isaac Newton was educated. There’s lots of other astronomy, other kinds of science, as well as art, theatre, dance and lots more.