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Live On Stage
Tuesday September 8 2026, 7pm BST

The Mystery of Time, with Jim Al-Khalili

What is time, really? Does it have a beginning? Could it ever run backwards? And is it even real?

Join one of the world’s most celebrated physicists and science communicators, Jim Al-Khalili, for an unmissable live show that will stretch your mind and transform the way you experience every ticking second of your life.

Drawing on his groundbreaking new book On Time, Jim takes audiences on a thrilling journey through the deepest mysteries of the universe — from the strange quantum world where the rules of time seem to dissolve, to the vast fabric of space-time bent and warped by gravity, to the thermodynamic arrow that insists time can only flow one way. Why can we remember the past but not the future? Why does the universe seem to move relentlessly forward? And what do the very edges of physics tell us about where time comes from?

Jim unpacks ideas that have baffled philosophers and scientists for millennia — and delivers some genuinely surprising answers. Far from being an illusion conjured by our minds, he argues that time is one of the most fundamental features of reality itself, written into the structure of the universe from its very first moment.

Join Jim live in venues across the UK, hear the arguments and ask your questions in the audience Q&A.

More dates to be announced soon.

On Time: The Physics That Makes the Universe Tick (Hardback)
by Jim Al-Khalili

BUY ON:
Event Name

The Mystery of Time, with Jim Al-Khalili



Speaker
  • Jim Al-Khalili

    Theoretical physicist, author and host of BBC Radio 4's The Life Scientific


Location
  • Union Chapel
  • Compton Terrace
  • London
  • N1 2UN
Time
  • Tuesday 8 September 2026
  • 7pm to 8:30pm BST





Speakers

Speaker

Jim Al-Khalili

Theoretical physicist, author and host of BBC Radio 4's The Life Scientific


Jim Al-Khalili is an Iraqi-born theoretical physicist at the University of Surrey, where he holds a Distinguished Chair in Physics as well as a university chair in the Public Engagement in Science. He is also a prominent author and broadcaster. He has written 14 books on popular science and the history of science, between them translated into twenty-six languages. His latest books include The Joy of Science and The World According to Physics, which was shortlisted for the Royal Society Book Prize. He is a regular presenter of TV science documentaries, such as the Bafta nominated Chemistry: a volatile history, and he hosts the long-running weekly BBC Radio 4 program, The Life Scientific.  He received an OBE in 2007 for ‘services to science.’ You can watch his TED talk here.

Speakers are subject to change.