2026 Solvay Public Lectures
Claudia de Rham
Imperial College, London, UK
Biography
Claudia de Rham is a Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London, where she is also the Director of the Abdus Salam Centre of Theoretical Physics. Her research challenges gravity, particle physics and cosmology in pursuit of a more fundamental description of the nature of our Universe and the laws that govern it. She is ranked among the most impactful researchers in fundamental physics of the past decade and her contributions to science have been recognised by numerous grants and awards.
She’s the author of an Encyclopaedia of Cosmology and a popular science book The Beauty of Falling – A Life in Pursuit of Gravity.
Testing the Fundamental Nature of Gravity with Gravitational Waves
Einstein’s theory of General Relativity is undoubtedly the greatest theory ever proposed, having been tested over 26 orders of magnitude – from sub-millimetre scales all the way up to galaxy cluster scales. It has correctly predicted the advance of the perihelion of Mercury and all planets in the solar system, the existence of gravitational waves and their production by colliding black holes, and the laws that govern those black holes, all confirmed with outstanding experimental success. After more than a century of uninterrupted success, General Relativity’s ability to predict its own downfall at the hands of quantum gravity may be its greatest achievement of all. I will discuss what it would take to test the quantum nature of gravity and probe its most fundamental nature with upcoming experiments including the Einstein Telescope.