Abstract: Galaxies like are have continued through most of cosmic time to form stars in a thin disc that initially orbited in the gravitational field of a dark halo that formed  earlier. A huge amount can be learnt by modelling the accumulation of stars in the plane. Spiral instabilities and giant molecular clouds (GMCs) move stars to less circular orbits. The GMCs are most effective early on when the disc is low in mass and rich in gas. They establish an almost perfectly exponential vertical density profile. At some time a bar usually forms, but the timing of the bar depends on several factors, including the effectiveness of heating by GMCs. If the bar becomes strong, it buckles to form a peanut-bulge. Increasing the density of the dark halo delays/suppresses bar formation. For a halo density near that now measured  locally & expected cosmologically, the model has components that closely resemble the thin disc and the bar/bulge. But there is no thick disc. A thick disc like the Galaxy's can be obtained by (i) starting the simulation with a thick stellar component, possibly formed in a major merger at z>2, or (ii) allowing early stars to form with large random velocities. These models allow us to predict the distribution in phase-space of stars of every age, and the extent to which stars have migrated from their birth locations, which is key information for models of chemical evolution. Early indications are that generic models provide remarkably good fits to observations.

Bio: James Binney has a BA from Cambridge University and a DPhil degree from Oxford University. During 1971/2 he studied at the Albert Ludwigs Univiersitaet, Freiburg i. Breisgau. From 1975--1979 he was a Fellow by Examination of Magdalen College, Oxford, and he spent the years 1975/6 and 1979-1980 in Princeton University before joining the Oxford Physics Faculty in 1981. Since July 1996 he has been Professor of Physics at Oxford University, where he is a Professorial Fellow of Merton College.  From 2010 - 2015 he was the Head of Oxford's Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics.

In 2000 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics.

He was awarded 1986 Maxwell Prize and Medal and the 2010 Dirac Medal by the Institute of Physics, London. He received the 2003 Dirk Brouwer Award of the American Astronomical Society and the 2013 Eddington Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the 2013 Medaille de l'Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris and the 2015 Occhialini Medal from the Italian Physical Society.

During 1994--7 he was President of both Commission 33 and Division VII of the International Astronomical Union and he has served on the Organizing Committee of Commission 28 of the IAU.