George Ellis is Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics at the University of Capetown, and investigates the physical foundations of the flow of time.. He is the co-author with Stephen Hawking of The Large Scale Structure of Space Time.

He is past president of the International Society of General Relativity and Gravitation, the Royal Society of South Africa and the International Society of Science and Religion, a Founder Member of the South African Academy of Science, and a Fellow of both the Third World Academy of Science and of the Royal Society, London. He is Joint Editor in Chief of the Journal of General Relativity and Gravitation. He has been awarded the Herschel Medal of the Royal Society of South Africa, the Star of South Africa Medal (awarded by President Mandela), the Templeton Prize (2004), the South African National Science and Technology Forum lifetime contribution award, the Academy of Science of South Africa Gold medal, and the Order of Mapungubwe (awarded by President Thabo Mbeki).

Past Events

• Time Since Einstein

  2009 Festival

  Journalist John Hockenberry leads a distinguished panel, including renowned physicist Sir Roger Penrose and prominent philosopher David Albert, as they explore the nature of time.

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• Nothing: The Subtle Science of Emptiness

  2009 Festival

  Journalist John Hockenberry hosts Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, esteemed cosmologist John Barrow, and leading physicists Paul Davies and George Ellis as they explore physics, philosophy and the nothing they share.

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