Events

Wednesday, April 17, 2013
3.30pm, Thirkield Hall Auditorium, Room 300

Howard University Department of Physics and Astronomy presents

Sylvester James Gates, Jr.
John S. Toll Professor of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park,
National Medal of Science recipient, noted String Theorist and former Chair of the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Howard University

Symmetry and the Quincunx Nexus

From the time of the ancient Greeks until today, the concept of symmetry has often been an important, but little understood concept, driving advances in physics. This presentation will strive to take an audience from understanding this link to its direct impact on ideas in Superstring/M-Theory and at one of its boundary where there appears to be a 5-fold overlap with other human ways of interpreting the universe.

SYLVESTER JAMES "JIM" GATES, JR., (born December 15, 1950) is an American theoretical physicist. He received two B.S. degrees and a Ph.D. degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the latter in 1977. His doctoral thesis was the first thesis at MIT to deal with supersymmetry. Gates is currently the John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park and serves on President Barack Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
and on the Maryland State Board of Education. He is known for his work on supersymmetry, supergravity, and superstring theory. In 1984, working with M.T. Grisaru, M. Rocek, W. Siegel, Gates co-authorized Superspace, the first comprehensive book on the topic of supersymmetry.
He is a member of the board of trustees of Society for Science & the Public.

Gates has been featured extensively on many NOVA PBS programs on physics,notably "The Elegant Universe" in 2003 and ''The Fabric of the Cosmos'' in 2011. In 2006, he completed a DVD series titled Superstring Theory: The DNA of Reality for The Teaching Company compos-ed of 24 half-hour lectures to make the complexities of unification theory comprehensible to non-physicists. In 2012 he was named a University System of Maryland Regents Professor, only the sixth person to be so recognized since 1992. He is past president of the National Society of Black Physicists, and is a NSBP Fellow, as well as a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Institute of Physics in the U.K. He also is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Science and the American Philosophical Society. Prof. Gates was awarded the Medal of Science presented by President Obama as the highest award given to scientists in the U.S. at a White House ceremony in 2013.

He currently continues his research in supersymmetry in systems of particles, fields, and strings.

> Co-sponsorship by the College of Arts & Sciences,
Office of the Provost and Howard University Chapter of Sigma Xi

Seminars

Coming soon!