Cape Town — The Muizenberg air will be crackling with cerebral activity this weekend when some of the world's greatest living minds will be sharing some of their extraordinary thoughts on the nature of the universe with both ordinary and exceptional Africans.

In what could arguably be described as the most significant scientific visit to the Cape since Charles Darwin arrived aboard the HMS Beagle in 1836, acclaimed cosmologist Stephen Hawking will be delivering a public lecture at the Muizenberg Pavilion on Sunday evening.

And accompanying the famous theoretical physicist and author of A Brief History of Time will be several other scientists and researchers who will not be in awe of his intellectual prowess.

They include physics Nobel laureates David Gross and George Smoot, and American Nasa (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) administrator Michael Griffin.

The distinguished group are coming to Cape Town to participate in two inaugural events.

The first, on Monday, will celebrate the opening of the AIMS (African Institute for Mathematical Sciences) Research Centre, an important extension to the already highly successful AIMS postgraduate training programme in mathematical sciences that is based in Muizenberg.

This state-of-the-art educational centre, which aims to create a new generation of African mathematicians and scientists, opened its doors in 2003. It was founded by Cambridge University mathematical physics professor Neil Turok, son of Muizenberg-based ANC MP Professor Ben Turok.

Turok, also world-acclaimed in his field, is a colleague of Hawking at Cambridge. They developed the Hawking-Turok Instanton Theory to describe the birth of an inflationary universe which posits that the universe came from something, not from utter nothingness. Turok facilitated Hawking's visit and that of the other scientists.

The second event, on Tuesday, is the launch of the National Institute for Theoretical Physics at the new Wallenberg Research Centre of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study.

The institute is being positioned as a national and African user facility for theoretical physics and will provide theoretical underpinning for national programmes including astrophysics, cosmology, nuclear and particle physics, quantum technologies, condensed matter physics and quantum optics.

Turok said the world leaders in scientific thought and research had come to the city in support of efforts to "unlock and nurture scientific talent across Africa".

"Their presence will help encourage Africa's brightest mathematics and science graduates to enter programmes like AIMS, where they can grow into independent problem-solvers, creative thinkers, innovators and excellent teachers, not ivory tower academics."

Turok said he had not had to work hard to persuade Hawking, a patron of AIMS, to visit the city for this unique event.

"He has been a patron since 2003 and has always wanted to visit Africa. He exchanged messages with Mandela in the 1990s, congratulating him on his wise leadership."

Turok said he still had frequent discussions with Hawking and that they had come close to collaborating recently on a number of occasions.

"We both work on the question of what happened at the 'Big Bang', was it the beginning of time or not?

"He has developed a mathematical model of the former, me of the latter. But we agree on the mathematics and on the observational predictions.

"We have a bet, for fun, about which way it will go and we are both looking forward to the outcome."

Hawking is disabled by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and is now almost completely paralysed.

"It is tremendously difficult for him to travel and incredibly generous of him to have agreed to come," Turok said.

Hawking's lecture on Sunday is fully booked.