Frank Wilczek has already won the Nobel Prize, and now he's setting his sights on the holy grail of physics - the Theory of Everything, writes Dick Ahlstrom.
The universe is an exceedingly strange place where unexpected things happen, suggests Nobel Laureate Frank Wilczek. But it is also a beautiful one, where the building blocks of matter appear as notes in a "music of the void".
Wilczek comes to Dublin next month, bringing with him his own intriguing slant on particle physics, the colour charge of quarks and the possibility of a theory for everything.
He delivers the annual Hamilton Lecture on October 16th at DIT Kevin Street, an event organised jointly by the Royal Irish Academy, The Irish Times and Depfa Bank. Appropriately, given the subject matter involved, Wilczek titles his talk: "The Universe is a Strange Place".
Few know better than Wilczek how strange a place it can be. He is the Herman Feshbach professor of physics in the Centre for Theoretical Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. He won the 2004 Nobel prize for physics with David Gross and David Politzer for the discovery of "asymptotic freedom".
This is a counter-intuitive phenomenon that causes sub-atomic building-block particles known as quarks to behave as free particles when close together, but become strongly attracted to one another when moved apart. The attraction is known as "colour charge", something that acts rather like a rubber band. There is no pull when the ends of the band are close, but increases when the ends are separated.
This discovery in 1973 led to a completely new theory, Quantum ChromoDynamics or QCD. This in turn was rapidly built into the Standard Model, the so-called theory of everything.
This model attempts to include all phenomenon associated with the fundamental interactions of nature, encapsulated in the four forces.
These are: the strong force that bonds quarks together, but only over short distances; the electromagnetic force that holds atoms and molecules together; the weak force, which is perhaps misnamed given it allows stars to burn via nuclear fusion and builds heavy atoms; and gravity, an insubstantial force that still has the power to build new suns and cause planets to remain in orbit.
Wilczek's work informed scientists about the strong force between quarks. It allowed particle physicists to better understand the behaviour of matter under the extreme heat conditions as occurred just after the Big Bang at the creation of the universe.
Particle physicists live in the quantum world of the very small. "Viewed from this perspective, the world looks very different from our everyday reality," says Wilczek.
"It is a very strange place and a beautiful one. In particular, we have come to understand that the building blocks of matter appear as notes in a music of the void," he adds.
He will attempt to describe this world in his lecture using facts, pictures and jokes. "Finally I will discuss some recent discoveries indicating that the world is even stranger than we've understood so far, and how we are rising to the challenge."
The Hamilton Lecture marks the date in 1843 that Ireland's greatest scientist, William Rowan Hamilton, discovered a mathematical system known as quaternions.
Wilczek's Hamilton Lecture takes place at 7pm on October 16th at Gleeson Hall in the Dublin Institute of Technology, Kevin Street. Admission is free but places must be booked as space is limited. Book over the internet on the academy's website, www.ria.ie and a small number of places will also be available by phoning 01-6762570