Nobel laureate explains much ado about nothing

The science behind apparently empty space has become a central issue for today's physics and cosmology.

A Nobel Prize winner recognised as one of the world's experts in how there must be something in nothing comes to Dublin later this month with a public lecture that might help explain the whole thing.

Prof Steven Weinberg won the Nobel Prize with Sheldon Glashow and Abdus Salam in 1979 for his contribution in helping to understand our universe. He is considered by many to be the pre-eminent theoretical physicist alive today.

He comes to Dublin to deliver the 2005 Hamilton Lecture on Monday 17th October entitled: Much Ado About Nothing - how the problem of the energy of empty space became a central concern of today's physics and cosmology. The Hamilton Lecture is organised by the Royal Irish Academy and The Irish Times, with the sponsorship of Depfa Bank.

Aside from being a superb scientist, Weinberg is also famous as a science communicator, adept at making the most complex theories accessible to a general audience. His book, The First Three Minutes, which describes time just after the Big Bang, was an international bestseller.

He currently holds the Josey Regental Chair in Science at the University of Texas, Austin. He is a recipient of the US National Medal of Science and the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the American Philosophical Society, among dozens of other US and international distinctions.

Steven Weinberg grew up in New York City where his father worked as a court stenographer. He had an early interest in science and by age 16 he focused his attentions on theoretical physics. He went to Cornell University, studied at the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark and got his PhD from Princeton.

His scientific interests were always broad, but his most noted work has been in unified field theory, the effort to join the laws of physics into a single elegant equation that explains all the matter and forces in nature.

The four forces that drive the laws of physics include gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, which holds an atom's nucleus together, and the weak force, that breaks an atom apart as in radioactivity.

Weinberg theorised in 1967 that the electromagnetic and the weak forces are the same at extremely high energy levels, a theory subsequently proved by particle accelerator experiments in 1973. The finding took physicists another step closer to a unified theory and Weinberg and his collaborators, Glashow and Salam shared the Nobel for their efforts.

The lecture takes place on Monday October 17th at 6.30pm in the Burke Lecture Theatre, Trinity College Dublin.

The Hamilton Lecture occurs each October to honour the work of the Irish mathematician and scientist, William Rowan Hamilton. It is free and open to the public, but places must be booked in advance because of limited space.

• To reserve a place log onto the Academy's web site at www.ria.ie. A small number of tickets is also available by phoning the Academy at 01-6762570.