Public Lecture Series

The APS public lecture series, held in conjunction with American Physical Society meetings, features talks by prominent physicists.

Past Lectures

Ludwig-Maximilians UniversitätTheodor Hänsch

From Edible Lasers to the Search for Earth-like Planets - Five Decades of Laser Spectroscopy
Theodor Hänsch
April Meeting 2010
Washington, DC

Dr. Hänsch won the Nobel Prize in Physics (2005) with John L. Hall for developing laser-based precision spectroscopy.

Brian Mosley/APS
Joel Primack's silhouette during  St. Louis lecture.

View From the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos
Joel Primack
Nancy Abrams
April Meeting 2008
St. Louis, MO

Bestselling authors Joel Primack and Nancy Abrams offered a tour of the ways traditional cultures have sought to explain not only the mechanism of the universe but its meaning to humans.
   Primack/Abrams Lecture

Built for Speed: NASCAR Physics
Diandra Leslie-Pelecky
April 16, 2007
Jacksonville, FL

Kerry G. Johnson/APS Diandra Leslie-Pelecky and the physics of NASCAR.

From behind the scenes at top racing shops to the asphalt at the Texas Motor Speedway, Professor Diandra Leslie- Pelecky has been on a quest to uncover the science behind the sport. Join her for a night of high speed fun and learn the science behind building for speed.

Diandra Leslie- Pelecky earned her PhD from Michigan State University and joined the physics faculty at the University of Nebraska in 1994. Her academic research focuses on magnetic nanomaterials with potential applications in improving MRI technology and cancer diagnosis. She is very involved with science education and public outreach and is currently writing a book on the Physics of NASCAR.

Thursday Night Football
Tim Gay
March 8, 2007
Denver, CO

From 1999 until 2004, Tim Gay, Professor of Physics at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, taught the largest physics class in the world – the 78,000 fans that attended the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers home football games in Memorial Stadium. In addition to enlightening football fans with his lectures and book, The Physics of Football , Gay studies polarized electrons, teaches college physics, and recently starred as rocker Tommy Lee's advisor in the reality TV show Tommy Lee Goes to College .

An Evening of Cosmology and String Theory
Lisa Randall
April 24, 2006
Dallas, TX

Lisa Randall is a leading theoretical physicist and expert on particle physics, string theory and cosmology. Her work has attracted enormous interest and is among the most cited in all of science. She is a professor of physics at Harvard University.

Einstein's Biggest Blunder: a Cosmic Mystery Story
Lawrence Krauss
April 18, 2005
Tampa, FL

How Does the Sun Shine?
John Bahcall
May 1, 2004
Denver, CO

In the middle of the 19th century, Charles Darwin, the originator of the theory of evolution, and Lord Kelvin, regarded by many of his contemporaries as the leading theoretical physicist of his era, were on opposite sides of a controversy concerning the age of the sun and the origin of solar energy. This controversy continued through the first half of the 20th century as the physics necessary to answer the question of how the sun shines was gradually discovered. In the latter half of the 20th century, experiments in the United States, Japan, Russia, Italy, and, Canada were built deep underground to detect elusive particles called neutrinos that scientists believe are produced when the sun burns hydrogen nuclei to supply the energy that the sun radiates. Fewer neutrinos were observed than were predicted by the theoretical models of how the sun shines. The mystery of the missing neutrinos persisted for more than three decades, from May 1968 until June 2001, when a dramatic solution was provided by new experiments. This talk will summarize the historical developments that led to the solution of the solar neutrino mystery and will describe the implications of recent discoveries about neutrinos from the Sun.

Editor's Note: John Bahcall passed away on August 17, 2005.