Transcending Matter: Physics and Ultimate Meaning

Speakers

Featuring

Adam Frank, PhD

Professor of Astrophysics, University of Rochester
Co-founder of NPR science blog 13.7 Cosmos & Culture
Author of "About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang" and "The Constant Fire. Beyond the Science vs. Religion Debate"

Adam Frank is a contributor to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos & Culture. A professor at the University of Rochester, Frank is a theoretical/computational astrophysicist and currently heads a research group developing supercomputer code to study the formation and death of stars. Frank's research has also explored the evolution of newly born planets and the structure of clouds in the interstellar medium. Recently, he has begun work in the fields of astrobiology and network theory/data science. Frank also holds a joint appointment at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a Department of Energy fusion lab.

Frank is the author of two books: The Constant Fire, Beyond the Science vs. Religion Debate (University of California Press, 2010), which was one of SEED magazine's "Best Picks of The Year," and About Time, Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang (Free Press, 2011). He has contributed to The New York Times and magazines such as Discover, Scientific American and Tricycle.

Frank's work has also appeared in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009. In 1999 he was awarded an American Astronomical Society prize for his science writing.

David Kaiser, PhD

Professor of the History of Science and Head of the Program in Science, Technology, and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Author of "How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival"

David Kaiser is Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and Department Head of MIT's Program in Science, Technology, and Society, and also a member of MIT's Department of Physics. His books include "Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics" (2005), and "How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival" (2011). A Fellow of the American Physical Society and recipient of the Pfizer Prize from the History of Science Society for best book in the field, Kaiser has also received MIT's highest awards for excellence in teaching. His work has been featured in Science, Nature, the New York Times, Scientific American, the London Review of Books, and the Huffington Post, as well as on NOVA television programs, NPR, and the BBC. He is currently writing two books about gravity: a textbook, with his colleague Alan Guth, on gravitation and cosmology, and a history of research on general relativity over the twentieth century.

Tim Maudlin, PhD

Professor of Philosophy, New York University
Author of "The Metaphysics within Physics and Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time"

Tim Maudlin is Professor of Philosophy at New York University. He received his BA in Physics and Philosophy from Yale and his PhD in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Pittsburgh. His work centers on the interpretation of physical theory: how the mathematical structures used in physics may be understood as presenting a physical account of the world. His most recent books are "Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time" and "New Foundations for Physical Geometry". He is a Guggenheim fellow, and a member of the Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences.

Priyamvada Natarajan, PhD

Professor of Astronomy and Physics, Yale University

Priya Natarajan is a cosmologist and theoretical astrophysicist at Yale University. In addition to this, she also holds the Sophie and Tycho Brahe Professorship at the Dark Center, Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark and a lifetime appointment as an Honorary Professor at the University of Delhi, India.

Natarajan is a theoretical astrophysicist interested in cosmology, gravitational lensing and black hole physics. Her research is focused on exotica in the Universe — dark matter, dark energy, and black holes. She is noted for her key contributions to two of the most challenging problems in cosmology:  mapping the distribution of dark matter and tracing the growth history of black holes. Her research work has been featured in Science, Nature, The New Yorker, BBC, NPR, CNN, and many other media outlets, newspapers and magazines around the world. Natarajan is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Explorers Club. The recipient of many awards and honors that include a Radcliffe Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship, National Academy of Sciences Kavli Frontiers Fellowship, the Caroline Herschel Award, JILA Fellowship, and the Face of the Future Award, she was also the first woman in Astrophysics to be elected a Title A Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Deeply invested in the public dissemination of science, a fervent proponent of numerical literacy, she is also a published poet. She is the author of a forthcoming book from Yale Press on the acceptance of radical scientific ideas in cosmology and has written for CNN, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post and the New York Review of Books.

Moderator

Steve Paulson

Executive Producer, Wisconsin Public Radio's nationally-syndicated program To the Best of Our Knowledge.

Steve Paulson is the executive producer and an interviewer with To the Best of Our Knowledge, the Peabody Award-winning radio program produced at Wisconsin Public Radio and syndicated nationally by Public Radio International. Paulson has written for Salon, Slate, Huffington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Independent and other publications. His radio reports have also been broadcast on NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. His recent book, "Atoms and Eden: Conversations on Religion and Science," was published by Oxford University Press.