00:33hi so did you know that the most
00:36beautiful thing in the entire universe
00:37mathematical equations so I was told
00:41once that you should always try earlier
00:42it as much of the audience as you
00:44possibly can as soon as you stand on
00:45stage so hopefully that's done that so
00:49now I'll spend the next 15 or so minutes
00:51trying to get people actually back on
00:53side this could be an uphill battle but
00:55bear with us we'll see what we can do so
00:57I'm going to tell you basically give you
00:59some stories about where I'm coming with
01:01this and what events my own history led
01:04me to come to this belief basically so I
01:06walk you through and let's hope that by
01:08the end of it you don't think I'm
01:09completely insane merely mildly insane
01:12right so first of all when I was 16
01:15years old I came across a book what's
01:17going through my father's library at the
01:18time or something and clearly was more
01:21bored than normal and I came across a
01:22book on chaos theory
01:23so I started flicking through this and
01:25it had some equations there and some
01:27computer programs that you could write
01:28yourself and that time I was quite
01:30interested in these so I started playing
01:31with it and saw that there were some
01:33really pretty pictures so this
01:35particular one here is the Mandelbrot
01:37set so it's an example of a fractal now
01:39what a fractal is is that you zoom in on
01:42it on every single point more and more
01:44closer and closer and you get detail at
01:48every single level and no matter how far
01:50you zoom in you get more detail more
01:52complexity this is already cool just for
01:55its pure aesthetics but what was even
01:57cooler for me was that all of this comes
01:59from a single equation a very simple
02:02equation you can see on the screen there
02:04and that gives rise to all of this
02:07complexity I won't go into the details
02:09of that but that just sort of blew me
02:11away actually just seems so strange so
02:13this went into the back of my mind and
02:15sort of influenced my progression if you
02:17like for the next year so one thing led
02:19to another and I ended up doing a PhD in
02:21astrophysics there were a couple of
02:24steps missing in that description I
02:25suspect but these things happen
02:28so interestingly enough it wasn't just
02:31me that had this type of experience
02:33actually so it turns out that the
02:36ascetic beauty that we perceive as
02:38humans and the beauty if you like in an
02:41equation if you see it as a
02:42mathematician in other words if you sort
02:43of understand what the equations mean
02:45what it actually how it fits together
02:46it's exactly the same part of the brain
02:50that's actually registered in this so
02:52it's a part of the frontal lobe from
02:54memory and this was research done by
02:55neuroscientists in the UK last year and
02:58they found that it's exactly the same
03:00plate activated in mathematicians when
03:02they look at an equation and it's
03:04anybody when you just look at a
03:05beautiful sunset for example so that's
03:08kind of cool it's exactly the same thing
03:10you just need to have a little bit of
03:11training to appreciate the actual beauty
03:13in the simplicity of the equations so I
03:18did the a PhD in astrophysics and
03:20extremely lucky for me Hubble Space
03:23Telescope had preceded me what that
03:25meant was that while I was going through
03:26the PhD and procrastinating like there
03:29was no tomorrow so basically I managed
03:32to stretch something that should be a
03:33few years into you know five these say
03:36so during that time I saw a lot of these
03:39pictures a lot of star forming regions
03:41and the aside from their aesthetic
03:43beauty they've actually got something in
03:45common with fractals so you take its
03:47inception zoom in and you see it's just
03:50it's complex to take another section
03:52zoom in and here you can see all this
03:55complexity this particular cloud is
03:57called the Carina Nebula it's about
03:59seven thousand light-years from the
04:01earth for comparison it's eight light
04:05minutes to the Sun in other words if the
04:08Sun were to suddenly explode like I
04:10don't know a doomsday bomb goes off I've
04:12been working on a few but I'm going to
04:13work yet so you're okay at the moment
04:15but say we just black out the Sun it
04:17would take eight minutes for us to
04:19notice on the earth right then we'd be
04:22in a bit of trouble burst that's another
04:24point so this is seven thousand light
04:27years away in other words if one of
04:28these stars were to explode right now it
04:30would take seven thousand years for us
04:32to see it so the size of this is desert
04:35immense and you've got light years and
04:38light years across each of these little
04:39dots here is a star and they all
04:42this entire thing out so you've got this
04:45beautiful fractal structure and also
04:47it's guided by relatively simple physics
04:51in this case so very simple equations
04:53these are just hydrodynamics exactly the
04:55same equations that we use when we're
04:57designing an aircraft for example
04:58exactly the same equations govern the
05:00movement of air over the plane which
05:03wings to actually provide lift all the
05:05same stuff since the weather patterns
05:07everything's all the same simple
05:09equations and you can get these enormous
05:10complexities so here we have another
05:12region just in the corner there zoom in
05:15and then we could see a tiny little bit
05:17there and you get you get this what
05:19looks like a seahorse over here but this
05:20enormous complexity everywhere and great
05:23deal of beauty so I looked at more and
05:27more of these pictures and I actually
05:28became inspired and another thing that
05:31I've been playing with when I was a
05:32early teenager about 13 or so was that I
05:35started to do a bit of oil painting so I
05:38decided at some point during my PhD to
05:41combine these two things together
05:42basically to take my own passion for
05:45space for the aesthetic beauty dec and
05:48to combine it with my passion for art so
05:51here's one of the examples that I
05:52actually did so the nebula sort of suit
05:56my style of painting for two reasons one
05:58I am passionate about it and two if you
06:02sort of if you muck up somebody's face
06:04people notice if you muck up a star
06:08cluster who notices so it suits my own
06:12like a skill which is quite useful there
06:14a when it's a hobby you can't be that
06:16good at it so ever so just to remind you
06:19we've got the fractals on all scales in
06:22this so you've got this enormous star
06:24clusters you keep zooming in and it's
06:26more and more detail at age level it's
06:28only limited by a telescope technology
06:29in fact but how far can we push this
06:32analogy how far can we do you take a
06:34simple set of equations and extrapolate
06:37enormous complexity from that well it
06:40turns out you can do it for the entire
06:42universe so why think small we can just
06:46take the entire universe in your stride
06:47so what we have here is a picture of the
06:50earliest picture we have of the universe
06:52so this is a cosmic microwave background
06:54radiation this is literally the Arthur
06:56glow from the Big Bang itself so this
06:59picture was well the photons from this
07:02the bits of lights from this left the
07:04original explosion about 13.7 billion
07:07years ago and it was pretty hot back
07:10then so everything in the same was
07:13roughly the same temperature and it's
07:14been slowly cooling so when we observe
07:16it now it's only about three degrees
07:17above absolute zero and this map here
07:20gives you the variation in temperature
07:21so this gives you a small difference
07:24across the entire universe
07:26it's about 0.1% difference between into
07:29these pixels here you see this is from
07:31the Planck telescope so what do you get
07:37the set of initial conditions you get
07:40this variation across there and then you
07:42have a very simple trust me this isn't
07:44so bad set of equations that actually
07:46govern how this will evolve this is
07:49actually I'm Stein's general relativity
07:52the fact that I can fit this on a screen
07:54is what I want to show you basically
07:56this is kind of cool
07:58this has everything literally everything
08:01on the left-hand side all of space and
08:03time every single thing in the universe
08:06and on the right-hand side all the
08:08contents of the universe energy and
08:10matter all the stuff we are made of
08:12every bit of hydrogen every bit of
08:14helium every bit of carbon all the
08:16things that make up our bodies
08:17everything is all on this right-hand
08:19side of the equation so you take this
08:22initial temperature map you take these
08:24equations and what we do is scientist is
08:26we run them through very large computers
08:28so this is an example of that it's a
08:30simulation and what your happens is you
08:32start getting the temperature variations
08:34causes density fluctuations and the name
08:37sort of collapsed together to end up
08:39with this huge complexity in there again
08:40this is just over time you get this
08:43complexity emerging and you end up with
08:45this it's like a web basically of matter
08:48going through each one of those dots
08:51what's that was the wrong button each
08:55one of those dots is like a cluster of
08:58like one or two galaxies for example the
09:00dense the clusters there the more
09:02galaxies to keep you present of it
09:03and this is all well and good for theory
09:06right this is just the American
09:07simulation so far what about the real
09:10world what about the universe this is
09:13actually a picture of our place in the
09:15entire universe this is El well we are
09:19here we are one of these tiny tiny
09:21little dogs owners and you have this
09:23complexity going in every direction even
09:26in 3d in fact this entire thing is a
09:28super cluster of galaxies it's called
09:30linear chaos which is Hawaiian for
09:32immense Heaven right this was there a
09:35discovery last year I believe and this
09:38actually shows all the the bounty bits
09:41along here all the galaxies that are
09:43actually close to each other and
09:44interacting in a closed way each of
09:46these dots is a galaxy now this might be
09:50more familiar to you from this picture
09:52here so this is a picture taken from the
09:55Hubble Space Telescope again and this is
09:58cool when I remember showing this is my
10:00grandparents once actually and they were
10:03blown away basically because of what it
10:05actually is so imagine you take your
10:08thumb you put up like that that's
10:09roughly the diameter of the moon is your
10:12fun right if you hold it out at maximum
10:14distance a tenth of that tiny tiny
10:16little bit that's how much space on the
10:19sky this takes so what they did was they
10:21got Hubble to basically look at a tiny
10:23little patch in the most boring part of
10:25the galaxy so they just looked straight
10:26up for example nice dark place no stars
10:29nothing to contaminate it and just keep
10:30looking look for a long time then build
10:32it all together and this is what you see
10:34each one of these dots every single dot
10:38in here is a galaxy the galaxy just like
10:41our own some bigger some smaller
10:44basically just a whole zoo of galaxies
10:46and you've got in this picture about
10:493000 galaxies all the way back to the
10:52very beginning of time as far as we can
10:53see and if we take a little zoom in on
10:56this you get this sort of thing so you
10:59get these spiral galaxies well it's
11:01beautiful complexity coming out of
11:02something so simple just a simple matter
11:05space and time put them together simple
11:08equation to govern at all
11:09so that just blew me away this sort of
11:12one would be roughly what our Milky Way
11:13would look like for example a nice no
11:15nice normal spiral galaxy so if we have
11:19a look at this guy here for example
11:20these are a couple of galaxies
11:22interacting so this is this is a
11:24different picture this is yeah 10 a
11:25galaxy which is 45 million light years
11:27away so it's a bit of a walk it takes a
11:31while to get there he can't really ride
11:32your bike said look so what we have here
11:35is two galaxies smashing into each other
11:37now as someone who likes basically
11:41things colliding and lots of explosions
11:43and things like that this was just too
11:45cool so I couldn't let that go without
11:47doing another painting of it so again
11:50they're crashing together they can't
11:51quite see so much on the screen but if
11:53you've got extremely good eyesight so
11:55you may be able to see the equations up
11:57here if you can't tell they are because
12:01there's just not enough oil paintings
12:03that have equations in them I don't know
12:05why this is a look through a whole lot
12:07of galleries went through the Louvre and
12:08I couldn't find a single set of
12:10equations in there I was quite
12:11disappointed but the idea of galaxies
12:14colliding is one thing but all of that
12:16complexity all that beauty comes from
12:18such a simple thing for those of you
12:22well the final year of high school
12:23physics you may recognize that it's one
12:25on R squared this R is just a distance
12:27so you have an R up there R cube there
12:30ends up being one on R square exactly
12:33the same equations that you're taught
12:34for you know throwing a ball for example
12:36in there just learning there govern the
12:38motion for stars and galaxies and
12:40everything so again just a simple
12:43concept simple equations giving rise to
12:45such complexity and such beauty just
12:48yeah it continues to blow me away so and
12:52you get exactly the same equations and
12:54they also govern the on the smaller
12:57scale of the stars the planets
12:58everything around this is a an artist's
13:01rendition of all the planets that the
13:04mission Kepler has found so this is a
13:06recent mission it's filmed hundreds of
13:09possibly to thousands by now
13:10- well them have yet to be confirmed so
13:12I think the number is about a thousand
13:13outside of our own solar system so these
13:15are all planets around other stars and
13:17this is just putting them all together
13:18so it gives you an idea of just how much
13:20diversity there is in the universe how
13:22much beauty how much complexity there is
13:24around the universe and one of them of
13:27course we have us and extremely as far
13:31as we have know quite unique planet and
13:34brimming with complexity room with
13:37beauty and inside these are a few
13:39examples of um patterns in nature so
13:43again you have these very simple
13:44underlying laws which give growth to
13:47these type of shapes all right and then
13:51of course you've got the most complex
13:52thing we've come across which is us
13:55humans we're already from a complex
13:58world and we've managed to make this
13:59enormous complexity these human
14:01societies just around us as well so this
14:06is an example of what we look like at
14:08night time this is Europe here so you've
14:11got London up there Paris over there
14:13must go up here yeah and it may seem
14:16that this is quite unrelated to space
14:19but actually it turns out from last year
14:22actually there was a paper which
14:24directly shows that there's an equation
14:27called Zips law it basically shows how
14:29much population you can get into a
14:31particular sea and shows a distribution
14:34of these cities across there and it's
14:36perfectly predictable by the exactly the
14:38same processes that actually govern
14:40galaxies forming together so very simple
14:43equations and very very cool so
14:46hopefully I've convinced you a little
14:48bit if not to believe me that the
14:49equations are the most beautiful thing
14:51but whether they are inherently
14:52beautiful and give rise to such amazing
14:55complexity around us thank you very much
