Jeff Forshaw is Professor of Particle Physics at Manchester University. As an ambassador for Potential Plus UK, he has supported the charity with fascinating talks at fundraising events. Here we hear from him about his participation in the forthcoming Cheltenham Science Festival, 4-9 June 2019.

“Cheltenham Science Festival is one of the highest profile science festivals in the UK. It has a track record of attracting a combination of new, young talent together with big names, all keen to share their excitement in science. This year is no exception and I’m delighted to have been asked to participate. I’ll be chairing an event featuring author Simon Winchester (“Exactly: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World”) and particle physicist, Rebecca Chislett.

200 years on from James Watt’s death, we’ll be taking a broad-ranging look at how precision engineering has developed to the point where now we can build scientific experiments capable of almost unimaginable precision. Rebecca’s experiment (g-2 at Fermilab in the USA) is one such; it aims to measure the magnetism of a tiny elementary particle called the muon to the 10th decimal place in order to test how well we understand the laws of nature.

Apart from that, I’ll be keen to see Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan talk about how AI has revolutionised chess and Go. From climate change to sharks to dementia to black holes, there’s likely to be something of interest for you at Cheltenham this year.”

Jeff is a recipient of the Maxwell Medal and Kelvin Prize and co-author of 5 books, including 3 popular science books, Why Does E=mc2?: (And Why Should We Care?); The Quantum Universe: Everything that can happen does happen; and Universal: A Guide to the Cosmos with Professor Brian Cox.

For more science from Jeff visit TED studies Physics: The Edge of Knowledge and to know what science books Jeff enjoys read Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw Share their Favourite Science Books