This was only 7 years after I became a full professor, just under the age of 40, but a great excuse for a public lecture and QMUL-paid for reception none the less. Family, friends, my upstairs neighbour (a documentary maker), some keen undergraduate students from my algebra class and a good chunk of the maths faculty came; in other words a mixed audience of all levels.

The talk which you can click on may not make much sense without the commentary but it is heavily based on Chapter 2 of my forthcoming volume On Space and Time, so if you have the book you can consider this as a summary of that. If not, try my Physics Essay. The talk began with a tribute to Douglas Adams and a short clip of his character Zaphod being fed into the Total Perspective Vortex (from the excellent radio show). This is exactly what the talk is about. A later version of it was given at the Mathematical Society, Trinity College, Dublin on 15th October 2008.

Please note that the talk is for private use, not for duplication or circulation and copyright on some images would belong as per the book chapter, please refer there where applicable.