NI Science Festival: Astrophysics for Supervillains with Matt Bothwell
NI Science Festival
We are delighted to welcome NI Science Festival to The Crescent this February for a series of events.
Learn how to destroy the universe with the power of astrophysics!
"Could you crash the Moon into the Earth? If the Sun explodes, would we all get vaporised? What’s the weather like on Mercury?"
Discover the answers to these questions and many more at the Supervillain Academy: the magnificently morbid school for young villains in training. Facts about space are all well and good, but discovering that if you threw someone into a black hole, they would be spaghettified – stretched out long and thin before getting squashed smaller than an atom – is truly, fascinatingly gruesome.
Dr Matt Bothwell is the public astronomer at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge. He currently runs the university’s astronomy public engagement program. He visits more than 100 schools and libraries every year to talk about space, and runs astronomy evenings for thousands of brownies, guides, cubs, and scouts. During the 2020 lockdowns, he presented a series of interactive astronomy lectures for children on YouTube.
He is the author of adult title The Invisible Universe (Why There’s More To Reality Than Meets The Eye), and his writing has appeared online in The Daily Beast, The Guardian, and Writer’s Digest.
The festival offers a stimulating and wide range of events focusing on the wonders of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics. These events present some of the best scientists from NI and beyond to discuss their work, cutting-edge research and what the future might hold.
