Black Holes & Hawking's Irish Protege Stephen Hawking's only-ever Irish Student is coming home to give a public talk on Black Holes. Dr Oisin MacConamhna is originally from Sligo, and now works as a research fellow with Imperial College London. As a 12-year old boy Oisin joined Astronomy Ireland. Upon finishing school he studied applied maths at NUI Galway, then went to Cambridge, where he completed his PhD under Professor Stephen Hawking, the world's foremost living cosmologist. In recent years Dr MacConamhna has published papers on inflating universes, along with numerous papers on mathematical and geometrical methods for solving Einstein's equations. His current field of research is on the geometry of event horizons and their relationship to quantum field theories. Event horizons are the 'point-of-no-return' around a black hole - the distance from the centre at which the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light. Because of this, nothing, even light itself was thought capable of escaping a black hole's gravitational grip. But in 1970, Stephen Hawking put forward a theory that black holes, given enough time, will evaporate! Monday's lecture will focus on Black Holes, and in it Dr MacConamhna will reveal that they are much, much more than one-way portals into oblivion. In clear, everyday language, he will explain how our commonsense ideas of space and time prove inadequate in the phenomenally intense gravity fields around these objects, and how the remarkable predictions of Einstein's Theory of Relativity are shown to be true near these, the most bizarre objects in the Universe. If you can't make it to Dublin, order the DVD of the lectue here - www.astronomy.ie/lectureDVD.html Dr MacConamhna will be on the Mooney radio show (RTE Radio 1) on Friday 13 April between 3pm and 5pm to talk about working with Stephen Hawking, Black Holes, Warped Space-Time and other peculiarities. Bookings: www.astronomy.ie or (01) 847 07 77 Organiser: Astronomy Ireland Lecture Title: "Black Holes" Lecture Venue: Physics Building, Trinity College Dublin. Date: Monday, 16 April 2007 Time: 8:00pm Admission: 5euro (3euro concessions) ALL WELCOME Last Chance on Reduced Star-B-Q Ticket Price Monday's lecture will be your last chance to book 40euro Star-B-Q tickets at the reduced price of 30euro. Our ever-popular Star-B-Q's attracts attendees from all over the country, and even oversees! To book online go to www.astronomy.ie/sbq or call (01) 847 07 77. ASTRONOMY IRELAND - for telescopes and information call (01) 847 0777 www.astronomy.ie