Department Colloquia

Upcoming Department Colloquia



Rittenhouse Lecture: Measuring Cosmic Sound with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument

Daniel Eisenstein (Harvard University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, A8

I will describe recent results from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) on the measurement of the cosmic distance scale with the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) method and its resulting…

Past Department Colloquia



Colloquium: Discoveries with the JWST, and what comes next

John C. Mather (NASA) Physics Nobel 2006
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, A8

The JWST, with its 6.5 m hexagonal mirror and its 4 infrared instruments, has yielded remarkable surprises. The first galaxies are brighter and hotter than expected, and they aren’t round, but are elongated…



Colloquium: Dark Matter Searches and New Constraints from the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment

Carmen Carmona (Pennsylvania State University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, A8

The existence of dark matter is strongly supported by an abundance of astrophysical and cosmological evidence, but has yet to be directly detected. Liquid Xe detectors have been a game changer in the field of dark…



Colloquium: Energetic Optimization During Cell Division

Michael Murrell (Yale University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, A8

Living systems are driven far from thermodynamic equilibrium through the continuous consumption of ambient energy. This energy is invested in the formation of complex, internal macromolecular structures and diverse…



Colloquium: Twenty-five Years of Science with Chandra

Hans Moritz Guenther (MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research)
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Chandra is one of NASA's "great observatories" and was launched in 1999. In this talk, I will review Chandra's history and instruments and show highlights from an absolutely astonishing 25 years of science…



Colloquium: Global Famine after Nuclear War

Alan Robock (Rutgers University)
- David Rittenhouse Laboratory, A8

The world as we know it could end any day as a result of an accidental nuclear war between the United States and Russia. The fires produced by attacks on cities and industrial areas would generate smoke that would…