The Jeremiah Horrocks Institute of the University of Central Lancashire is pleased to announce the inaugural Christmas Lecture:
Songs of the Stars, the Real Music of the Spheres: finding other Earths with the Kepler Space Mission
by Professor Don Kurtz
10.30am on Wednesday 19th December
We humans are visual creatures: “seeing is believing”. But there are other ways to know the world and universe. Some animals such as bats “see” with sound. 2500 years ago the Pythagoreans believed in a celestial Music of the Spheres, an idea that reverberated down the millennia in Western music, literature, art and science. Now we know that there is a real Music of the Spheres. The stars have sounds in them that we can use to see right to their very cores. This multi-media lecture looks at the relationship of music to stellar sounds. You will hear the real sounds of the stars (with a key change) and you will hear musical compositions where every member of the orchestra is a real (astronomical) star! You will also hear about the latest discoveries from the Kepler Space Mission that let’s us “hear” the stars 100 times better than with telescopes on the ground. You will find out how stellar sounds help the Kepler Space Mission in its exciting search for another Earth.
Don Kurtz was born in San Diego to an American father and Canadian mother. He obtained his PhD in astronomy from the University of Texas in 1976, then spent 25 years in South Africa at the University of Cape Town. He is now Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. Don observes with some of the largest telescopes in the world, has over 2000 nights at the telescope, and is the discoverer of a class of pulsating, magnetic stars that are the most peculiar stars known. He is a member of the steering committee of the Kepler Asteroseismic Science Consortium, and is co-author of the fundamental textbook, “Asteroseismology“.
The Lecture takes place on Wednesday, December 19th at 10:30 am in Foster Building, room FBLT2. Following the talk you will be invited to experience some of the exciting research taking place at the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute and meet the members of staff.
The Christmas Lecture and presentations afterwards are open to all members of the public. Area secondary schools are especially invited to the event.
Please note, this is not a ticketed event.