What's missing from our understanding of the Cosmos?
Earthlings: buckle up for a journey through the Cosmos! Prof. Wendy Freedman, an award-winning scientist studying the frontiers of cosmology will guide you in this episode of Science and Cocktails through our galaxy, the outer space, and its many mysterious objects such as dark energy, dark matter, and black holes. An episode that will take you to the edge of our current understanding of the universe. All this just after SPEkTR! mixes rock, surf and electronics and Ms. Jekel spins the turntables.
How do we measure the expansion the universe? What is the size and age of the universe? What is the current discrepancy in our understanding of the expansion of the universe? What do we know about the inventory of our Universe? What is dark matter?
How did black holes become real?
In 1929, Carnegie astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding, and revolutionized our perspective on the universe. Decades of discovery followed. The launch of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in 1990 enabled astronomers to make measurements of the universe of unprecedented accuracy. The December 25, 2021 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope is now promising even higher accuracy. Professor Freedman will describe how astronomers measure how fast the universe is expanding, a quantity known as the Hubble constant, which gives a measure of the size and the age of the universe.
Event held in English with the generous support of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. For this event we also acknowledge the support of The Niels Bohr International Academy.
Talk by
Wendy L. Freedman
Wendy Laurel Freedman is a Canadian-American astronomer, best known for her measurement of the Hubble constant, and as director of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, and Las Campanas, Chile. She is now the John & Marion Sullivan University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Her principal research interests are in observational cosmology, focusing on measuring both the current and past expansion rates of the universe, and on characterizing the nature of dark energy. Freedman has been elected a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society. She was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2023.
She has received several awards for her contributions to observational cosmology, including a Centennial Lectureship of the American Physical Society (1999), the John P. McGovern Award in Science (2000), the Magellanic Premium Award of the American Philosophical Society (2002) and the Marc Aaronson Lectureship and prize (1994) "in recognition of a decade of fundamental contributions to the areas of the extra galactic distance scale and the stellar populations of galaxies". In 2009 Freedman was one of three co-recipients of the Gruber Cosmology Prize. She received the 2016 Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics, awarded jointly by the American Institute of Physics and the American Astronomical Society, "for her outstanding contributions and leadership role in using optical and infrared space- and ground-based observations of Cepheid stars, together with innovative analysis techniques, to greatly improve the accuracy of the cosmic distance scale and thereby constrain fundamental cosmological parameters.". She was elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020.
Asteroid 107638 Wendyfreedman, discovered by David Healy at the Junk Bond Observatory in 2001, was named in her honor.
Music by
SPEkTR!
The band that has existed since 2001 and with a small sea of releases and countless concerts in Denmark and abroad behind them, has completed their 7th album with the title "MIRAGE". The record was conceived in 2020-2021 in Manoj's home studio and completed in various Copenhagen studios. The album will be released in Spring 2023 on Strange Aeons Records. Expect a rock-inspired unique soundtrack for movies that only SPEkTR can play. The competences of the three experienced musicians cannot be denied and a dynamic and high-octane show is delivered that dips and rises in step with the sonic scenarios their instrumental set calls up. A Neo-cinematic experience!
The band consists of Manoj Ramdas (Black Sol, The Raveonettes, CHILDRENN, The Good The Bad, etc.), Kåre Joensen (Robot, Baby Woodrose, etc.) and Lasse Herbst (Choir of Young Believers, Fallulah, Lightwave Empire, etc. .fl). Around the turn of the millennium, Manoj Ramdas formed the instrumental ensemble SPEkTR, which today, 22 years later, has countless releases and concerts in Denmark and abroad on its conscience.
Live act by
Ms. Jekel
An avid collector of french retromusic on vinyl for the past 20 years, she has made her mark as a regular DJ in the Copenhagen scene playing her vast and eclectic record collection! At Science and Cocktails she will tour de france with a variety of genres from old school chanson over mod-jazz and rare 60's yé-yé pop. She'll mix it up with some lounge music and a bit of groovy soul that goes hand in hand with a good glass of wine.
