2025-11-03 - The Demon's in the Details

Dr. Felix Flicker from the University of Bristol joined us as speaker for the next installment of Samhain agus Science 2025

Demons have a surprisingly rich history in physics. Various 19th century thought experiments invoked demons as imagined agents capable of superhuman powers, standing in for imagined future scientific devices capable of unimaginable precision. Many of these devices have nowadays been realised. In this talk I will give a history of demons in physics, before presenting ongoing work in which we seek to detail a lesser-known modern example: Pines' demon, a new type of particle observed in 2023.

**********

Felix Flicker is a theoretical physicist and senior lecturer at the University of Bristol. His work concerns the quantum underpinnings of matter. He is the author of a bestselling popular science book, The Magick of Matter (Profile, 2022).

**********

Now in its eighth year, Samhain agus Science brings together researchers from DIAS and around the world for a series of free events that take inspiration from the Celtic festival of Samhain and look at the dark side of science.

The festival aims to make the big scientific questions of our time and Celtic history relevant, accessible, and fun to a general audience who might not normally be familiar with these topics.