In case you happen to be in town:

Professor Jim Al-Khalili of the University of Surrey will host the third public Surrey Debate ‘The God Particle: Is science the new religion?’ on Wednesday, October 17 from 7.00 p.m. – 8.30 p.m. at Guildford Cathedral.

Next year, the world largest particle accelerator, the LHC, begins its hunt for a subatomic particle called the Higgs boson - the so-called ‘God particle’ that it is hoped will help explain some of the deepest questions of existence.

To mark this event a panel of experts (full list and biographies below), chaired by Professor Jim Al-Khalili, will debate some of the controversial issues surrounding science and religion including:

• Is there still a place for religion?

• Will science ever be able to address the ultimate questions of reality?

The debate is part of a wider event at Guildford Cathedral in which fine artist JoWonder will be exhibiting a new art installation (Flatlanders) depicting the rise and fall of Icarus, mirroring and challenging the arrogance of extreme science and religion.

The Panelists:

Brian Cox is a professor of particle physics at Manchester University and CERN laboratory in Geneva, working on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), CERN’s new 27km ong machine that will search for the Higgs boson. As a young man he joined rock band DARE as a keyboard player. DARE split in 1992 and Brian left music to study Physics - or so he thought. In 1993, he was invited to join D:REAM who went on to have many top 10 hits before finally going their separate ways in 1997. Brian has received many awards for his work in publicising science. In 2006 he was awarded the prestigious Lord Kelvin Award by the British Association. Today, he is also a television & radio presenter, broadcaster and writer and was the scientific consultant on the recent Hollywood film Sunshine.

The Very Revd Victor Stock is the Dean of Guildford. He was educated at Christopher Wren School, Kings College London and St Boniface College, Warminster VSO in Borneo. He has worked in various London parishes, including Resident Chaplain to London University Rector of St Mary-le-Bow, City of London – 1986-2002, and has twice been the Lord Mayor’s Chaplain. He is a Founder Trustee of the Globe Centre for people with HIV and AIDS in the City and Founding Director of St Mary-le-Bow’s Young Homeless Project. He is also a founder member of the Affirming Catholicism movement Chaplain to the Order of Australia and was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 2003 for his work with the Australian community in the City. He was installed as Dean of Guildford 2002.

Paul Sen has a background in engineering and is an award-winning television producer with a strong track record in factual television, particularly in science and history. His programmes include ‘Triumph of the Nerds’ and ‘Rave New World’ for Channel 4 and more recently, ‘Light Fantastic’ and ‘Atom’ for the BBC, ‘Death by Excess’ for Sky One and ‘The Net’ for the Discovery Channel. Paul loves science and passionately believes that the scientific method is the single greatest tool the human race has.

Jo Wonder’s background is both as a performer and a fine artist. Her films play with scale and use puppets, animation and trick photography combined with artificial environments to ape with the logic of the world as we know it. This year’s Surrey Debate will incorporate her two screen video installation ‘Flatlanders’ to celebrate the monumental particle physics experiment at CERN. She believes we want to understand everything about the world, but blind spots at the heart of our knowledge will always prevent us from achieving a final and complete description of reality for her, art is an attempt to bridge that gap.

Debate Chair

Jim Al-Khalili is a scientist, author and broadcaster based at the University of Surrey in Guildford where he holds a personal chair in Physics and is University of Surrey Professor of Public Engagement in Science. His photograph hangs in the National Portrait Gallery and he is this year’s recipient of the Royal Society Michael Faraday Medal and Prize for Science Communication. Jim is author of a number of popular science books that have between them been translated into 13 languages. He is an honorary fellow and trustee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and a senior advisor to the British Council. He was one of the judges on this year’s BBC Samuel Johnson Book Prize for non-fiction. This summer, he presented a major three part series for BBC4 called ‘Atom’, soon to be repeated on BBC 2.