Duncan Lecture
The Annual Duncan Lecture in the Department of Physics
2023 - 2013 Duncan Lectures
2023 Duncan Lecture
This year’s Duncan Memorial Lecture offers an exciting evening celebrating both the arts and sciences in one event. Anna Frebel, professor of physics and head of astrophysics at the MIT Kavil Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, will give a theatrical performance as nuclear physicist Lise Meitner and then return to herself and speak on the topic of Understanding the origins of the elements on Thursday, April 13 at 4:45 p.m. in the Sciences Center Auditorium.
Meitner is most famously known for discovering “nuclear fission” or the process of splitting uranium atoms to produce energy. The basis for nuclear reactors, changed the world and impacted numerous areas such as medicine, politics, environmental emissions and the course of history as we know it.
Her story is a reminder that the scientific community must continue to work towards greater diversity, equity, and inclusion to ensure that all scientists are given the recognition they deserve.
Read more about the 2023 Duncan Lecture.
2022 Duncan Lecture
Annual Duncan Lecture discussed a journey to explore Pluto and much more
When: Thursday, October 13, 2 p.m.
Where: Science Center Auditorium classroom
Abstract:
New Horizons is NASA’s mission to explore the Pluto system and the Kuiper Belt (KB). New Horizons launched in 2006 and made the first explorations of the Pluto system in July 2015 and the first exploration of any Kuiper Belt Object (KBO), a body named Arrokoth, in January 2019. It is now on an extended mission to explore the Kuiper Belt and conduct other scientific investigations only feasible from its position 54 AU from the Sun, or farther. The spacecraft carries a sophisticated payload of imagers, spectrometers, and other scientific instruments. The flyby of the Pluto system by New Horizons revealed a complex planet and satellite system. Beyond providing rich geological, compositional, and atmospheric datasets, New Horizons also demonstrated that Pluto has been surprisingly geologically and climatologically active throughout 4+ Gyr, and that it exhibits a surprisingly complex range of phenomenology and geologic expression that rivals Mars in its richness. I will describe the mission’s objectives, the capabilities of the payload, the flybys of Pluto and KBO Arrokoth, and some of the major scientific discoveries made about in these flybys. I will close by also outlining the future extended mission of New Horizons.
About Dr. Alan Stern:
Sol Alan Stern (New Orleans, 1957) is an American engineer and planetary scientist. His research has focused on studies of our solar system's Kuiper belt and Oort cloud, comets, the satellites of the outer planets, Pluto, and the search for evidence of planetary systems around other stars. Stern is the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Chief Scientist at Moon Express and served as the Associate Administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
2021 Duncan Lecture
Annual Duncan Lecture discussed black holes and gravitational waves
“I study objects where all matter has been forgotten,” explained Deirdre Shoemaker, a theoretical physicist who researches the effects black holes have on our universe.
On Friday, March 12, Shoemaker was the featured speaker for the 2021 Annual Duncan Lecture. Her anticipated speech, How are gravitational waves advancing our understanding of the universe, was attended by faculty, staff, and students.
“Large stars can become black holes or extremely dense and complicated neutron stars,” she shared. “I study black holes and their oscillations in space. Think of them as ripples in the fabric of the universe.”
As a professor of physics and director of the Center for Gravitational Physics at the University of Texas at Austin, Shoemaker discussed how gravitational waves were discovered in 2015 with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration, 4 kilometer large tunnels that use laserlight to pick up the tiny ripples in space.
“As a graduate student in the late 1990s, I saw an incredible opportunity to study objects in the universe,” she said. “The two LIGO observatories in Hanford Washington and the other in Livingston, Louisiana, were being constructed during that time from 1994 – 2000.”
Shoemaker uses the world’s most powerful computers to understand how black holes end up on collision courses and how this affects the universe around them.
“My team of graduate students and postdocs help me create 3D images of gravitational waves resulting from the collision of two black holes and run calculations to solve for the dynamics of and gravitational radiation emitted by the collision with the help of a supercomputer,” she added
She concluded her presentation with a snapshot of the future.
“Estimated in 2035, in a partnership lead by the European Space Agency and NASA, the LISA Consortium will include 3 satellites orbiting the sun about 2.5 million kilometers apart,” Shoemaker said. “In the next few decades, we will be able to learn even more about our incredible universe.”
Once her presentation was finished, Shoemaker answered questions for more than 30 minutes. An array of undergraduate students, graduate students, alumni, and faculty asked in-depth questions about her research and insight of the world of physics.
Watch the recorded presentation.
2019 Duncan Lecture
Auburn University Associate Professor Dennis Bodewits and Artist Ekaterina Smirnova spoke at the 2019 Duncan Lecture - Water in our solar system.
"Comets are the most primitive materials we can study," explained Dr. Bodewits. His lecture gave audience members insight into the formation of water in our solary system, the late heavy bombardment that took place 3.9 million years ago, how comets evolve, and how to use the molecular fingerprint of heavy water.
View the artwork online of artist Ekaterina Smirnova.
2013 - 2017 Duncan Lectures
To view previous lectures, click on each link below:
- 2017 Annual Duncan Lecture: Dr. David Michael McCollough, Archive Operations, Astrophysicist, Archival Astrophysicist, Center for Astrophysics, Harvard and Smithsonian - Binaries, Cygus X-3 and its little friend.
- 2016 Annual Duncan Lecture: Dr. John C. Mather, Senior Scientist, Cosmology, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center - The history of the universe from the beginning to the end: Where did we come from, where can we go?
- 2015 Annual Duncan Lecture: Dr. Sara Seager, Professor of Planetary Science and Physics, MIT - The search for Earth 2.0.
- 2014 Annual Duncan Lecture: Dr. Bradley M. Peterson, Professor Emeritus of Astronomy, The Ohio State University - Solving the quasar, A fiftty year quest.
- 2013 Annual Duncan Lecture: Dr. Dan Hooper, Professor, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago - In search of our universe's missing mass and energy.