Leiden University
Lorentz Chair

Lorentz Chair since 1955

2011

Roger Penrose

2010

Thomas A. Witten [lectures]

2009

Kip S. Thorne [lectures]

2008

F. Duncan M. Haldane [lectures]

2007

Thomas W.B. Kibble

2006

David R. Nelson

2005

Peter Zoller [lectures]

2004

Leonard Susskind

2003

Leo P. Kadanoff

2002

John P. Preskill

2001

Howard C. Berg

2000

Chandra M. Varma

1999

Michael V. Berry

1998

Frank Wilczek

1997

Bertrand I. Halperin

1996

Yoseph Imry

1995

N. David Mermin

1994

Julius Wess

1993

Michael E. Fisher

1992

Alexander F. Andreev

1991

Pierre C. Hohenberg

1990

Bernie J. Alder

1989

Martinus J.G. Veltman

1988

Claude Cohen-Tannoudji

1987

Raymond L. Orbach

1986

Philippe Nozières

1985

Ben Widom

1984

Chen Ning Yang

1983

Irwin Oppenheim

1982

Léon van Hove

1981

Ryogo Kubo

1980

Anatole Abragam

1979

Ezechiel G.D. Cohen

1978

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes

1977

Victor F. Weisskopf

1976

Rudolph E. Peierls

1975

John Bardeen

1974

Roy J. Glauber

1973

Nicolaas Bloembergen

1972

Felix Bloch

1971

David Pines

1970

Lars Onsager

1969

Isaak M. Khalatnikov

1968

Elliott W. Montroll

1967

Christian Møller

1966

Herbert Fröhlich

1965

Wladyslaw Opechowski

1964

Oskar Klein

1963

Mark Kac

1962

Léon Rosenfeld

1961

Elliott W. Montroll

1960

John H. van Vleck

1959

John G. Kirkwood

1958

Walter H. Heitler

1957

Eugene P. Wigner

1956

John A. Wheeler

1955

George E. Uhlenbeck

» portrait gallery « of Nobel laureate Lorentz professors

Each year an eminent theoretical physicist holds the Lorentz Chair. The 2011 Lorentz professor is Sir Roger Penrose, from the University of Oxford.

Professor Penrose will give five lectures on

New Developments in Physics and Cosmology

Monday afternoons May 9, 16, 23, 30, and June 6, 2011 (13.45-15.30 hours, De Sitterzaal, Oortgebouw).
In addition, he will present a Colloquium Ehrenfestii on Wednesday evening May 11.

Extra: Public lecture on June 10

Topics of the five lectures (with abstracts):

In these lectures, various ideas will be described that challenge the conventional outlooks on physics in different areas, from the very small to the very large. A modification of standard quantum mechanics will be argued for, based on general relativistic principles, this having striking implications for cosmology, in relation to the second law of thermodynamics. The primacy of massless particles leads to a viewpoint that conformal (null-cone) space-time geometry is more over-reaching than its metric, suggesting a radically new cosmological picture. This geometry is also basic to twistor theory, for which new roles have recently been found, particularly in high-energy physics.


Signatures of the Lorentz professors on the wall of our old colloquium room.