You may recall us mentioning that Fermilab and USLHC are organizing a series of simultaneous public lectures to coincide with tomorrow's release of the movie "Angels and Demons." In Sean's post, he quoted from an email from Boris Kayser, a Fermilab Distinguished Scientist who also chairs the Division of Particles and Fields of the American Physical Society. Boris isn't just advertising this effort, but is rolling up his sleeves and getting involved himself, in a number of ways. One thing he's doing is to take part in a Live Video Teleconference on Tuesday, with CERN's director-general Rolf-Dieter Heuer, and Nobelist Leon Lederman. A few days before that, on Saturday afternoon, Boris is giving a public lecture in New Jersey. But of most direct relevance for me is that after his Saturday afternoon lecture, Boris is jumping in his car and driving up to Philadelphia where, at 7:30 in the evening, in Claudia Cohen Auditorium, he'll deliver a public lecture here at Penn.
Antimatter, Matter, and How We Came To Be: The Science Behind "Angels & Demons" In the novel and movie “Angels & Demons,” a small droplet of antimatter threatens to entirely destroy Vatican City. Antimatter, matter’s opposite, is quite real. Furthermore, when antimatter and matter meet, they do destroy each other. The universe is safe for life only because there is virtually no antimatter in it. Yet, scientists believe that just after the Big Bang at the beginning of the universe, there were equal amounts of antimatter and matter. In this lecture, we will explain what antimatter is, and how it is related to matter. We will describe the efforts of scientists to understand how the universe, starting out with equal amounts of antimatter and matter, came to be a world with almost no antimatter, so that we can exist.
If you're in the Philly area I hope you'll consider dropping by to see the talk. If you happen to have read my three-part discussion on the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe, starting here, you should find Boris' walk through the material an interesting new perspective. If you haven't read my series (what is wrong with you?), then the lecture should be a wonderful introduction.
