Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President for Academics

Distinguished Lecture Series

Title: Einstein's Blunder Undone:
Supernovae, Dark Energy and the Accelerating Universe

Robert P. Kirshner, Ph.D.
Clowes Professor of Sciences
Department of Astronomy
Harvard University

October 10, 2006, 7:30 p.m.
Auditorium, Annenberg Presidential Conference Center
Texas A&M University

Abstract

One of the great surprises in all of physical science is the astronomical discovery that the expansion of the Universe is speeding up. The current picture is that this expansion on the largest known scale is driven by a mysterious "dark energy" whose nature we do not know, but which may be a result of fundamental forces acting on the smallest distances in nature. This talk will sketch the evidence for this strange new picture of the Universe and describe new investigations that may reveal the nature of the dark energy.

About the Speaker

Dr. Robert Kirshner is Clowes Professor of Science at Harvard University. He graduated from Harvard College in 1970 and received a Ph.D. in astronomy at the California Institute of Technology in 1975. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Peak National Observatory in Tucson, he joined the faculty at the University of Michigan where he served for 9 years moving to the Department of Astronomy at Harvard University in 1986. He served as Chairman of the Department of Astronomy from 1990-1997 and as Associate Director for Optical and Infrared Astronomy at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics from 1997-2003.

Dr. Kirshner is an author of more than 200 research papers dealing with supernovae, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and the size and shape of the universe. His work with the High-Z Supernova Team on the acceleration of the universe the "Science Breakthrough of the Year for 1998" by Science magazine. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1998. He was elected President of the American Astronomical Society 2003.

Dr. Kirshner is a frequent public lecturer on science. He is also the teacher of Science A-35, a core curriculum course Harvard undergraduates entitled "Matter in the Universe." His popular book The Extravagant Universe: exploding stars, energy, and the accelerating cosmos was published by Princeton University press in October 2002.

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