Public Lectures

We can set foot on faraway planets, in a sense, by exploring the world beneath our
feet. Underground caves provide unique insights into what we might find beneath
alien landscapes. We are studying caves on Earth to understand how they
form, the spectacular minerals they produce, and the unusual creatures – from
microbes to vertebrates – that thrive in them.

By understanding the caves of our own planet, we can use them as models for the
subsurfaces of other planets. This work provides insights into the lava tubes
on celestial bodies including Mars and our Moon, as well as possible dissolved
caves on Titan, which orbits Saturn. There are many possibilities surrounding
cave formation on practically every type of object in the Solar System.

Some of the most extreme cave environments on Earth are inhabited by an amazing array
of microorganisms. Some of these creatures eat their way through bedrock,
some live in hyperacid conditions, some produce unusual biominerals and rare
cave formations, and many produce compounds of potential pharmaceutical and
industrial significance. We study these unique organisms and the physical
and chemical biosignatures they leave behind. Such traces can be
used to provide a “Field Guide to Unknown Organisms” for developing life-detection
space missions. Additionally, the lava tubes clearly present on Mars
and the Moon can provide the basis for future human habitations on those
planets.

Nearly a century after their discovery, black holes remain one of the most striking, and problematic predictions of general relativity. Even more unsettling is the fact that they actually appear to exist! With only a handful of exceptions, every galaxy contains a supermassive behemoth, millions to billions as massive as the sun, at their center. These supermassive black holes are hardly incidental, they gravitationally power enormous outflows that rule the fates of their hosts. Despite the critical role they play in our understanding of gravity and impact upon the visible universe, actually testing their nature has remained beyond our reach - until now. Dr. Broderick will describe how astronomers are currently constructing (and operating) facilities that will image the horizons of black holes, and what we can already say about these enigmatic monsters in the dark.

While quantum mechanics is an immensely powerful and precise theory which seems to describe everything in the world, its insistence on only predicting what happens when we make "measurements" has left scientists and philosophers alike puzzled - as David Mermin summarized one of Einstein's concerns, "Is the moon there when nobody looks?" Dr. Steinberg will talk about some of the new ideas revolutionizing our view of quantum measurement, in particular the surprising advantages of measuring things "weakly" and suggest that new hints may be emerging about how we should think about Einstein's moon.

Based on her book, The Calculus Diaries, join, Jennifer Ouellette as she shows how calculus can be applied to everything from gas mileage, diet, the rides at Disneyland, surfing in Hawaii, shooting craps in Vegas and warding off zombies.  Even the mathematically challenged, can-and-should learn the fundamentals of the universal language.

What is time?  Is our perception of time passing an illusion which hides a deeper, timeless reality?  Or is it real, indeed, the most real aspect of our experience of the world?  Einstein said that "the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion,"  and many contemporary theorists agree that time emerges from a more fundamental timeless quantum universe. But, in recent cosmological speculation, this timeless picture of nature seems to have reached a dead end, populated by infinite numbers of imagined unobservable universes.  

In his talk, Lee Smolin explains why he changed his mind about the nature of time. Like many fellow theorists, he used to believe time is an illusion, but he now embraces the view that time is real and everything else, including the laws of nature, evolves.  Drawing from his new book, Time Reborn, Smolin explains how the great unsolved problems in physics and cosmology may be solved by adopting the view of a real time.  then he will go beyond physics to explain how our view of time affects how we think of everything from our personal and family lives to how we face major problems such as climate change and economic crisis.  In a world in which time is real, the future is open and there is an essential role for human agency and imagination in envisioning and shaping a good future.

A quasicrystal is an exotic state of matter with symmetries once thought to be impossible for matter. The concept was first introduced and the first examples were synthesized in the laboratory thirty years ago, but could Nature have beaten us to the punch? This talk will describe the search for the first natural quasicrystal, An adventure to the ends of the Earth and beyond and one of the wildest scientific stories you are ever likely to hear.

Gravitational waves are "ripples of space-time" that were predicted by Einstein's theory of General Relativity almost a century ago.  The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) now pushes the frontiers of science and engineering to try and catch these waves for the first time.  This will allow us to explore the last dance of pairs of neutron stars colliding to give birth to a black hole and other astrophysical events in a way humans never have before.  Dr. Gonzalez will describe how a worldwide community of scientists is working to open a new window to the Universe searching for Einstein's gravitational waves.