WUSTL physics professors will explore topics in astronomy this fall during the Saturday Science seminar series, sponsored by the Department of Physics and University College, both in Arts & Sciences.
Astrophysics was chosen as the theme of this fall’s Saturday Science series in honor of 2009’s designation as the International Year of Astronomy by the International Astronomical Union and the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Lectures are free and open to the public, and no registration is required. Presentations start at 10 a.m. and take place in Crow Hall, Room 201.
The series began Oct. 17 with the presentation “Production of the Elements” by Ernst Zinner, Ph.D., research professor.
The rest of the schedule:
Saturday, Oct. 24. “Roll Over, Galileo: The New Astronomy of Gravitational Waves,” presented by Clifford Will, Ph.D., the James S. McDonnell Professor.
Since the time of Galileo’s refinement of the telescope 400 years ago, almost all astronomical discoveries have been made using light. But some time during the next 10 years, a new kind of astronomy will begin, using waves of gravity, a phenomenon predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
Oct. 31. “Radio and Gamma-Ray Observations of Supermassive Black Holes,” presented by Henric Krawczynski, Ph.D., associate professor.
When nature squeezes a sufficient amount of matter into a small volume, a black hole forms — an object so massive and compact that nothing escapes its gravitational pull, not even light. There is evidence that every massive galaxy in the universe harbors a “supermassive black hole” — with a mass exceeding one million times the mass of the sun.
Nov. 7. “Cosmology and Particle Physics,” presented by Mark Alford, Ph.D., associate professor.
Humans live in an expanding universe, where “dark matter” shapes galaxies and “dark energy” drives the expansion rate faster and faster. In Switzerland, the Large Hadron Collider is about to probe the building blocks of matter at the smallest distances ever explored. Alford will discuss how knowledge of the smallest particles helps us understand the structure and history of the universe.
For more information, call 935-6276 or visit physics.wustl.edu, click on “Seminar/Events” and then “Saturday Lectures.”