Colloquium
Frontiers Science Forum: The New Universe and the Human Future (Joel Primack, UC-Santa Cruz, Sep.7, 2012)

Release date:2012-09-07 Page views:791

报告题目Title: The New Universe and the Human Future

 

报告人Speaker: Joel Primack, Physics Department, University of California, Santa Cruz.

 

地点(Location)Room 111, Physics Building

 

时间Time Sep. 7, 2012 (Friday) 14:30 (2:30pm)

 

摘要(Abstract:

In the centuries since  Newton, scientifically minded people have thought of Earth as a lonely  rock orbiting an average star in a universe where no place is special.  But modern cosmology has given us a new perspective based on dark  matter, dark energy, and the drama of cosmic evolution. Join philosopher  Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel R. Primack, distinguished professor of  physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, for a discussion of  this new vision of the universe with stunning astronomical videos. They  will also place the global issues of our time in a cosmic context. The  lecture includes beautiful astronomical videos, many of them based on  the latest simulations.

 

个人简介(Biography:

Distinguished Professor of Physics

Director, University of California systemwide High-Performance Astro-Computing Center, 2010-

Princeton University A.B. 1966 Physics, (Summa cum laude, valedictorian)

Ph.D. Stanford University, 1970 Physics

Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows, Harvard University, 1970-73

A.P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship, 1974

Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Senior Award, 1999

 

         Dr. Joel R. Primack specializes  in the formation and evolution of galaxies and the nature of the dark  matter that makes up most of the matter in the universe. After helping  to create what is now called the "Standard Model" of particle physics,  Primack began working in cosmology in the late 1970s, and he became a  leader in the new field of particle astrophysics.  His 1982 paper with  Heinz Pagels was the first to propose that a natural candidate for the  dark matter is the lightest supersymmetric particle.  He is one of the  principal originators and developers of the theory of Cold Dark Matter,  which has become the basis for the standard modern picture of structure  formation in the universe.  With support from the National Science  Foundation, NASA, and the Department of Energy, he is currently using  supercomputers to simulate and visualize the evolution of the universe  and the formation of galaxies under various assumptions, and comparing  the predictions of these theories to the latest observational data.

 

 

Nancy Ellen Abrams received her B.A. in the  history and philosophy of science from the University of Chicago, her  J.D. from the University of Michigan, and a diploma in international law  from the Escuela Libre de Derecho in Mexico City. She was a Fulbright  Scholar and a Woodrow Wilson Designate. She is a writer whose work has  appeared in journals, newspapers, and magazines, such as The Bulletin of the Atomic ScientistsEnvironmentCalifornia Lawyer, and Science and Global Security.

 

 


She  works as a scholar to put the discoveries of modern cosmology into a  cultural context and as a writer and artist to communicate their  possible meanings at a deeper level. "Cosmology and Culture," the  course she and Primack developed and have co-taught since 1996 at the  University of California, Santa Cruz, has received awards from both the  Templeton Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies. 
Over the past ten years, they have given many invited talks on themes from The View from the Center of the Universe not  only at universities but at planetariums, cultural centers, conferences,  churches, and temples. Their talks are multimedia presentations, in  which Joel presents new cosmological ideas and Nancy discusses their  meaning and relevance, performs her own songs, and sometimes leads the  audience in guided contemplations to help them visualize the ideas. 

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