Join us as we livestream “The Cosmos in a Heartbeat”, a free lecture and visual presentation by Shane Larson, associate professor of physics at Northwestern University. We will be livestreaming the presentation from the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and will be one of 30 planetariums around the world taking part.

About the lecture:
A human lifetime is more than a hundred billion times shorter than the age of the Universe. Whether you are a professional astronomer, or a casual backyard stargazer, you have only a few decades to drink it all in—to wonder how it works and how you got here.

The cosmos is full of strange happenings that we sometimes are lucky enough to witness because we happened to be paying attention to the stories the Universe is telling us. These tales are carried on bursts of light, showers of sub-atomic particles, and the faint whisperings of gravity, and every day that passes, we’re getting better at deciphering them.

In our lifetimes, we will only ever have a glimpse of the cosmos. But that glimpse is enough to transform our perceptions in dramatic ways and to answer the oldest questions we have about what the Universe is doing all around us.

About Dr. Larson:
Shane Larson is a research associate professor of physics at Northwestern University, where he is the Associate Director of CIERA (Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics). He works in the field of gravitational wave astrophysics, specializing in studies of compact stars, binaries, and the galaxy. He works in gravitational wave astronomy with both the ground-based LIGO project, and future space-based observatory LISA. He was formerly a tenured associate professor of physics at Utah State University. He contributes regularly to a public science blog at writescience.wordpress.com, and tweets with the handle @sciencejedi.

Doors: 5:00pm
We ask that you arrive by 5:15pm to claim your seat. Any unclaimed seats will be given to walk-ins after 5:15pm.

FREE ADMISSION Reserve your seat on Eventbrite.