Science Discovery Lecture – Tuesday 24th March – 6.30pm
Mar 16, 2026
From neutron stars to medical physics: New forms of matter and quantum connections
The lecture will be delivered by Professor Dan Watts from the School of Physics, Engineering and Technology at the University of York.
Neutron stars are the remnants formed after supernovae explosions. They are typically about the size of York but contain more mass than our sun. One teaspoon of neutron star matter would weigh around 1 billion tonnes on earth, they have the strongest magnetic fields known in the universe and they can rotate so fast that the surface moves at significant fraction of the speed of light.
Dan’s research uses the world’s most intense electromagnetic beams to probe the structure of hadronic matter and to carry out precision measurements on atomic nuclei. The research provides new information on the fundamental structure of matter, provides key data for nuclear physics and also progresses our understanding of dense hadronic systems in astrophysics such as neutron stars.
