Space And Beyond...
Admission Fee: $15.00 per presentation
Online Location: Zoom
Registration opens Monday, November 21 at 8:30 am on Eventbrite!
Our Universe – The Big Picture
February 25, 2023 from 10:00am to Noon
Delve into the world of modern astronomy, and learn more about our incredible universe.
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Presenter:
David Prud’homme, PhD, former President of the Edmonton Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
About The Talk:
Our universe is unimaginably huge giving astronomy its greatest challenge with its mysteries and secrets hidden in plain sight, yet veiled in the immensity of space. This presentation is a journey through the magnitude of space. It outlines some of what is known, the discovery process for what is unknown, and offers tantalizing hints about perplexing things that we know yet can’t explain, like dark matter. All are invited for this mind-expanding tour of modern astronomy.
Biography:
Dr. David Prud’homme, PhD, former president of the Edmonton Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada loves sharing his awe of our universe. A lifelong learner with keen interests in the natural world, sciences, mathematics, and languages, he has been a volunteer instructor for VIU ElderCollege for over ten years, where one of his courses isIntroduction to the Night Skies. After traveling around the world with his wife, Linda, to view three total solar eclipses, he shared their experiences through Saturday Speakers and public viewing of the partial eclipse of 2017 with hundreds of people on the Qualicum Beach waterfront.
Exploring The Universe With The Hubble And Webb Space Telescopes
March 25, 2023 from 10:00am to Noon
An exploration into how the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope are changing our view of the universe.
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Presenter:
Christopher Gainor, PhD, Editor of Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly
About The Talk:
The Hubble Space Telescope has been changing humanity's view of the universe for more than three decades. The James Webb Space Telescope has recently begun operations, and promises to build on Hubble's work. Chris Gainor talks about the history of these astronomical observatories and their scientific findings.
Biography:
Chris Gainor, PhD is the author of six books, including Not Yet Imagined: A Study of Hubble Space Telescope Operations. He is also the editor of Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly.
Space and Time: Beyond Flatland
April 15, 2023 from 10:00am to Noon
Concepts of space and time put forward since the beginning of the 20thCentury.
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Presenter:
Joaquin Bohigas Bosch, a recently retired professional astronomer, has been involved in research, teaching, and outreach activities for the past 40 years.
About The Talk:
During the first half of the twentieth century, concepts of space and time were radically changed by Quantum Mechanics along with the Special and General Theories of Relativity. In daily experience, the physical universe is an ordered, predictable, rigid three-dimensional world where parallel lines never meet, where space and time are continuous and can be measured with absolute precision, where clocks run at the same rhythm, where messages are sent from wherever we are, and where there is clear distinction between past and future, cause, effect, and simultaneity. These impressions are a consequence of the particular conditions of our physical environment. Most do not realize that space is curved and each clock runs at a different rhythm because the earth’s mass is too small to bend space-time. We move so slow that we don’t notice that the measurements of time and space depend on how fast we go. We are so big that we cannot see that the world is inherently uncertain, that, among other things, there is a fundamental limit to the accuracy with which we can measure at the same time the position and the velocity of a particle. For the same reason, we still discuss whether space and time are continuous or whether there is a basic unit for both.
Biography:
Joaquín Bohigas Bosch is an astronomer trained at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the University of Oxford. He has been a researcher at the UNAM's Institute of Astronomy for the past forty years, almost always in the city of Ensenada, Mexico. Most of his activities have been directly related to investigating different manifestations of the interstellar medium, but he has also dedicated part of his time presiding over and developing instrumentation for the National Astronomical Observatory in the Sierra de San Pedro Martir, Baja California.
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