The Penultimate Curiosity: Science, Religion and the Big Questions
2nd October 2016 · 11:00am - 1:00pm
In person | Virtual event
The Penultimate Curiosity sets out to answer one of the most profound questions about the development of human thought: why is it that throughout the long journey from cave painting to quantum physics what we now refer to as ‘science’ and ‘religion’ have been so closely entangled?
On the 2nd October the artist Roger Wagner and Professor of Nanomaterials Andrew Briggs, will discuss their book and show excerpts from a forthcoming documentary.
Roger Wagner has been described by Charles Moore in The Spectator as the “best religious painter in Britain today”. He has work in public and private collections in Britain and around the world. Among recent commissions was a stained glass window (shortlisted for the ACE award for art in a religious context) that pairs John Piper’s famous window in St Mary’s Iffley, and the first portrait of the new Archbishop of Canterbury. He has produced several books of illustrated poems and three illustrated volumes of his own translation of the Psalms. He read English at Oxford, and then studied at the Royal Academy School of Art. In 1981 he returned to Oxford and began a conversation about science with Andrew Briggs.
Andrew Briggs was elected in 2002 to be the first holder of the newly created Chair in Nanomaterials at the University of Oxford. He has published over 575 papers and articles, the majority in internationally reviewed scholarly journals. After studying physics at Oxford he gained a PhD at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, followed by a degree in Theology, winning the Chase Prize for Greek. In 1980 he returned to Oxford, where he has been successively Royal Society Research Fellow, University Lecturer, Reader, and Professor, and Director of the UK Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration in Quantum Information Processing. His scientific curiosity focuses on materials and techniques for quantum superposition and entanglement.
Doors 10.30. Entry £3, £2 concs./free to Conway Hall Ethical Society members (no tickets needed).
Please note the change of date. You tickets will still be valid at this event.
Brockway Room (Ground floor).
Tea, coffee & biscuits will be available.