2024
Friday, March 15, 2024
Emily Rice, CUNY
Hegeman 107 1:00 pm – 1:00 pm EDT/GMT-4 The landscape of academic science has changed significantly in recent decades and is poised to change even more in the future. We can leverage these cultural changes to create an environment that is both inclusive to more people and more effective in preparing students (science majors and non-majors alike) for a wider variety of careers and more broadly defined success. I’ll share my own path to science and a variety of science projects I have been involved in along the way to becoming tenured faculty at the City University of New York, including: planetarium shows, parody music videos, media appearances, an concept-oriented lab manual, Astronomy on Tap public outreach events, STARtorialist science fashion blog and shop, the AstroCom NYC research mentorship program, and last but certainly not least, the BDNYC brown dwarf research group. The implicit mission that connects these eclectic projects is to expand support for, participation in, and even the definition of science. |
Thursday, March 14, 2024
Hegeman 106 6:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Come celebrate Pi Day with us by enjoying pizza, pie, and games! |
Friday, March 8, 2024
Sophia Stone, Lynn University
Hegeman 204A 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Plato reserved high esteem for mathematics, even saying in the Laws that learning mathematics was a necessity, that without the use or knowledge of mathematics, ‘a man cannot become a God to the world, nor a spirit, nor yet a hero, nor able earnestly to think and care for man.’ Bertrand Russell remarks on this passage in The Study of Mathematics, “Such was Plato’s judgment of mathematics; but the mathematicians do not read Plato, while those who read him know no mathematics, and regard his opinion upon this question as merely a curious aberration,” (Russell 1963, p. 85). Reflecting on Bertrand Russell’s ruminations about Plato, it is well known, though we no longer have direct evidence, that before the entrance to Plato’s Academy was the inscription, “no one should enter here unless he is a geometer.” Sprinkled throughout Plato’s dialogues are geometry problems (Meno), statements about the Odd and the Even (Phaedo, Euthyphro, Parmenides), and of course, that well known claim in his Republic VII, 526g-527c that while there are two kinds of numbers, those used in practical endeavors like star gazing and military soldier formation on the one hand, and those that can only be grasped in the mind on the other, that even those who are slow at calculation or reasoning, if they are educated in it, even if they gain nothing else, improve and generally become sharper in thinking than they were. So if mathematics, and especially the study of geometry, improves the quality of the soul and makes it easier to see the form of the Good (526e-527b6-8), then could Plato’s treatment of mathematics in his dialogues tell us something about his theory of forms? In this talk, I’ll lay out some of the problems of understanding Plato’s theory of forms and why we have yet to solve these problems. While Plato saw the form-sensible relation as essentially a non-expressible mathematical relation, contemporary scholars commonly think of the form-sensible relation in terms of sets and its members. My own view is that we are unable to solve the problems of understanding Plato’s theory of forms because of our own advances in mathematics. |
Friday, March 1, 2024
James Hedberg, CCNY
Hegeman 107 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Planetariums have long been referred to as virtual spaceships, capable of whisking their passengers to far off stars or distant galaxies. Through a carefully crafted union of scientific data visualization and cinematic techniques, we can watch the sun set on Mars or eat lunch at the center of the Milky Way. Another use of these immersive theaters is to serve as virtual time machines, enabling scientifically accurate visualizations of night skies and other astronomical objects as they were observed and recorded centuries, even millennia ago. This talk will explore immersive experiences we've created that port ancient data sets to a decidedly modern venue. |
Friday, February 23, 2024
Jack Forman, MIT
Hegeman 107 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Textiles are vital to our survival across different scales, from medical textiles that repair our most vital organs to blankets that provide warmth and protection. Even as the fibers and textiles we produce become more advanced, we still only view textiles as static and disposable goods. In this talk, Forman will discuss his recent work, FibeRobo, which subverts this understanding through the invention of shape-shifting fabrics. This talk will span scales and disciplines from the chemistry of liquid crystal elastomer synthesis to the interaction design of dynamic compression garments for human-dog interaction. By blending textiles' softness and flexibility with actuators' morphing capabilities, these interfaces offer a novel approach to designing interactive wearable systems that can seamlessly integrate into our daily lives. Jack Forman is a Ph.D. Student at the MIT Media Lab and Center for Bits & Atoms where he also received his M.S. Before coming to MIT, Jack received his B.S. in Materials Science & Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. |
Friday, February 16, 2024
Joshua Eisenthal, California Institute of Technology
Hegeman 107 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EST/GMT-5 How is mathematical geometry related to real, physical space? With the proliferation of non-Euclidean geometries in the nineteenth century, this question became known as the “problem of space”. By around 1900, a consensus formed around the following purported solution. The possibility of measuring spatial magnitudes depends on the possibility of moving rigid bodies (such as rulers and compasses) without changing their dimensions. As only the constant curvature geometries could represent this kind of rigid transport, only these geometries were candidate physical geometries — or so they thought. However, it was only after the development of general relativity in 1915 that the physical significance of transport along affine geodesics (“straightest” lines) was understood. When an object is not affected by external forces and moves inertially it moves along an affine geodesic, but if this takes place in a curved space, those geodesics do not stay a fixed distance apart. Thus an extended object will experience elastic tension when it moves in a curved space, even when there are no forces acting on it. In this talk I will explore what impact this insight might have had for the nineteenth century problem of space. In particular, I will outline the consequences for the two main positions in the philosophy of geometry that are still with us today: geometrical empiricism (the view that experiments determine which geometry is “true”) and geometrical conventionalism (the view that we ourselves must decide, based on simplicity and convenience, which geometry is best to use). Joshua Eisenthal is a Research Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the California Institute of Technology and an Editor at the Einstein Papers Project. His research focuses on the history and philosophy of physics, particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and early analytic philosophy, particularly the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. |
Friday, February 9, 2024
Paul Cadden-Zimansky, Physics Program
Hegeman 107 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm EST/GMT-5 Almost every physical interaction we observe or experience is presently viewed as being governed by the rules of electricity and magnetism, and the understanding of these rules underlies the development of most modern technologies. Despite their pervasive nature, electric and magnetic phenomena were for millennia obscure, occult topics and investigations into them took a number of surprising, unorthodox, and occasionally tragic turns before their ubiquity was understood and the rules governing them codified. In this talk, intended for a general audience, I'll review some of the key experiments and insights of past centuries that led to our present understanding electricity and magnetism. |