Upon a dark canvas: the ordered motions of Andromeda's satellite galaxies: Neil Ibata at TEDxVienna

Neil Ibata is a senior year student at the Lycée International in Strasbourg, France. In January 2013, he co-authored a study that showed that galaxies form in an unexpected way: while it was known that large galaxies like our Milky Way build up by assimilating their smaller neighbours, the new study showed that these smaller galaxies fall in coherent planes. This property of our cosmos is surprising to astrophysicists, and remains unexplained. Neil's contribution to this work was to discover that these galaxies also possess a common sense of rotation.
Neil is a passionate pianist and particularly interested in Romantic era music. He has obtained many prizes in mathematical competitions, most recently the second prize of the French Mathematical Olympiads and third prize in the International Tournament of Young Mathematicians.




In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)