Paul Chaikin, professor of physics at New York University, will give a talk, “How Many M&M’s in That Jar? Particle Packings, Frustration and Why Things Crystallize,” Oct. 2 at 7:30 p.m. in Schwartz Auditorium, Rockefeller Hall.
Princeton classics professor Barbara Graziosi will deliver the three-part Townsend Lectures on the theme of “Homecoming and Homemaking in the Ancient Mediterranean.” The lectures will begin at 4:30 p.m. in 165 McGraw Hall. The talks are free and the public is invited.
The PBS documentary series “The Future of America’s Past” features Elissa Sampson, lecturer in the Jewish Studies Program, in the episode about New York City’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, “The Fire of a Movement.”
The Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards celebrated a new space for its instrument collection at 726 University Ave. with “New Meets Old: Collaborative Confrontations,” a festival Sept. 6-7, presented by the Department of Music in the College of Arts and Sciences.
George Hutchinson’s book, “Facing the Abyss,” has been shortlisted for the Christian Gauss Award of 2019, one of the major prizes for literary scholarship in any field. The Phi Beta Kappa Society, which confers the award, will announce the winning titles on October 1.
NSF funds two discipline-based education research projects
The National Science Foundation has funded two discipline-based education research (DBER) projects in the College of Arts & Sciences, contributing to Cornell’s growing DBER profile. Both grants are about $300,000 and three years in length.
The Riemann hypothesis -- an unsolved problem in pure mathematics – is one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems, with a $1 million prize to the person who solves it.
But that’s not why it fascinates mathematical physicist Andre’ LeClair, for whom this is perhaps the most important open question in mathematics.
Cornell will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing with an afternoon of discussion about the future of planetary and exoplanetary discovery. “From the Moon to Mars and Beyond” will take place on July 20, the actual anniversary of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descending from the Eagle spacecraft onto the lunar surface. The event will feature two talks and a panel discussion and will be held from 2-4:30 pm in Call Auditorium, Kennedy Hall.
Cornell has been selected as one of 14 U.S.-based host institutions for the 51 Pegasi b Postdoctoral Fellowship in Planetary Astronomy. The fellowship, supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation, provides up to eight postdoctoral scientists per year up to $375,000 of support for independent research over three years.
Travelers to Reunion were introduced to the origins and evolutions of travel photography by Andrew Moisey, assistant professor of the history of art and visual studies, in a June 6 talk, “Forever Your Journey: Capturing the Experience of Faraway Places, 1700-1900,” in Goldwin Smith Hall’s Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium.
As antibiotic resistance rises, the search for new antibiotic strategies has become imperative. In 2013, the Centers for Disease Control estimated that antibiotic resistant bacteria cause at least 2 million infections and 23,000 deaths a year in the U.S.; a recent report raised the likely mortality rate to 162,044.
