Australia Tour 2014

It’s funny how one thing leads to another. The video of my Friday Evening Discourse at the Royal Institution last year caught the attention of a former colleague and produced an invitation to contribute a lecture to her plans to celebrate the International Year of Crystallography at the University of Western Australia in Perth this summer.

And then, because my wife has family in Brisbane whom we have never visited, the organisers of the International Biophysics Congress, which will be held there this August, were good enough to offer a slot for a public lecture in their opening program.

And then, to help justify the expense of the trip, which is being part funded by the Society of Crystallographers of Australia and New Zealand, stopovers in Sydney and Melbourne were added to the itinerary. (Update, 23/07/14: after this was originally posted, I got a further invitation to talk at Hobart, which has now been added to the itinerary). All in all it is going to be quite a month for me and my family.

The four five talks are all free and open to the public, so if you find yourself in the area next month, please do come along. I hope to offer an eye-opening answer to the question, “What is X-ray Crystallography and how did it transform our view of the world?”

The tour dates (I am sotempted to have t-shirts printed) are:

• 03 Aug, Brisbane, International Biophysics Congress (register for free)
• 18 Aug, Sydney, University of Sydney Ideas lecture
• 20 Aug, Melbourne, Monash University Chemical Society lecture
• 22 Aug, Hobart, University of Tasmania (Lecture info)
• 25 Aug, Perth, Institute of Advanced Ideas, Crystallography Lectures

We are looking forward to the trip immensely. Never having visited Australia, we would be glad to have suggestions of things that we must see or do.