Anna McPherson Public Lecture 2019 - "New Windows on the Cosmos"

Wendy Freedman (University of Chicago)

Jan 24, 2019 6:30 PM

Location: Leacock Auditorium (room 132), McGill University, 845 rue Sherbrooke O, Montreal
Anna McPherson Public Lecture 2019

Anna McPherson Public Lecture 2019

A public talk by Dr. Wendy Freedman, from the University of Chicago.

*Open to everyone, no prior knowledge of physics required!

Title:"New Windows on the Cosmos"

For over 400 years, astronomers have used telescopes to study the universe. Technological advances have led to four centuries of remarkable astronomical discoveries. In the last few decades alone, we have discovered about thousands of new planets outside of those in our own Solar System, observed galaxies colliding and merging out to tremendous distances, and observed the entire universe to be expanding at an increasing rate, pulled apart by a cosmic force, unexplained by any of our current physical theories. Astronomers have ambitious plans for this new millennium ? with giant new telescopes planned for both the ground and space. Dr. Freedman will focus on recent astronomical discoveries, and show how new facilities being built on Earth will address some of the biggest mysteries in astronomy today.

The annual Anna I. McPherson Lectures series in Physics were established in honour of Anna Isobel McPherson, a member of the McGill Physics Faculty from 1940 until her death in 1979. Over her long association with the Department of Physics, Anna McPherson made important contributions in teaching, research, and counselling, helping and teaching a very large number of students. The McPherson lecture series was established to acknowledge her outstanding generosity and her many valued academic contributions. The mandate of these lectures is to bring a distinguished physicist to McGill each year to give two lectures, one of which is a lecture for the general public.