Jim Al-Khalili is an academic physicist, author and broadcaster. Since 2005, he has held a joint chair in physics and in the public engagement in science at the University of Surrey, where he teaches and conducts theoretical research in quantum physics. He has written 12 books, between them translated into over twenty languages. His book, Pathfinders, was shortlisted for the Warwick Prize in 2013, and more recently,Life on the Edge: the coming of age of quantum biology was shortlisted for the 2015 Royal Society Winton Prize. He is a regular presenter of TV science documentaries, including the Bafta nominated Chemistry: A Volatile History and Shock and Awe: The Story of Electricity. For the past seven years he has presented the award-winning weekly BBC Radio 4 programme, The Life Scientific.

Jim is a fellow of the Royal Society and the current president of the British Science Association. He is a trustee of the Institute of Physics and on the judging panel of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. As an advocate for secular humanism, he served as president of Humanists UK for three years. He is a recipient of the Royal Society Michael Faraday medal, the Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal and the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication. He received an OBE in 2007 for ‘services to science’ and elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2018.

Talk: Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe.

With all the excitement of space exploration, it’s only fair to consider the possibility of travelling through time too. So, forget about Dr WHo’s TARDIS and come along to the Main Stage to hear physicist Jim Al-Khalili separate science fact from science fiction. He will ask what modern physics has to say on the topic of time travel. And assuming it were even possible, how would we go about building a real time machine?