DR HARRY CLIFF
PARTICLE PHYSICIST
ABOUT ME
I'm a particle physicist at the University of Cambridge working on the LHCb experiment, a huge particle detector buried 100m underground at CERN near Geneva. I'm part of a team of around 700 physicists from all over the world who are using LHCb to search for evidence of new particles that could answer some of the biggest questions in modern physics.
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For the past seven years I held a joint post between Cambridge and the Science Museum in London, where I curated two major exhibitions: Collider (2013) and The Sun (2018). I'm an enthusiastic communicator of science and have given a huge number of public talks including at TED and the Royal Institution, alongside appearances on television, radio and podcasts.
RESEARCH
Particle Physics
I'm part of a large international team working on the LHCb Experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. LHCb is searching for signs of new particles that could help us understand some of the big unsolved problems in fundamental physics including the nature of dark matter and why the universe is made of matter and not antimatter.
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My research focusses on studying particles called B-mesons, which are exotic particles containing a bottom quark. I study ultra-rare decays of these particles, which can be affected by new particles or forces that lie outside our current best theory, the Standard Model.
TALKING SCIENCE
I love talking about physics, particularly in front of a live audience. Get in touch if you'd like me to talk at your school, institution or event. I give a lot of public talks and lectures and have even tried my hand at standup comedy. Here are some recent highlights.
TED
In December 2015 I was invited to speak at TED Global. My talk, titled 'Have we reached the end of physics?' (short answer, definitely not) covered the Large Hadron Collider, what we still don't understand and where particle physics might be going. It has now been viewed over 2 million times.
ROYAL INSTITUTION
For the past few years I've taught a lecture course, 'An Introduction to Particle Physics', at the Royal Institution in London. The course proved very popular and I've now repeated it three times and was asked to give an advanced course for the die-hard particle physics fans. Keep an eye on the RI site for news of future courses.
FESTIVALS
I've recently given talks at a number of festivals including Kaleidoscope and Gravity Fields in 2018, the World Science Festival, Brisbane in 2017 and Wilderness in 2016. Some have been pretty straight science talks, others a bit more silly, as you can probably judge from the image below...
Here are a few examples of me in action.
ROYAL INSTITUTION
TED
COMEDY, BRIGHT CLUB
CONTACT ME
If you'd like to get in touch, just message me with your details using the form below and I'll get back to you.