2009 Royal Society of New Zealand Distinguished Speaker

ROBERT P KIRSHNER, Clowes Professor of Science at Harvard University, is one of the world's leading astronomers, a popular public lecturer on science and author of "The Extravagant Universe: Exploding Stars, Dark Energy, and the Accelerating Cosmos." Kirshner is described as a "raconteur of exceptional eloquence," and by New Scientist as "one of the liveliest and most amusing lecturers in the world of astronomy". His research has resulted in significant and surprising breakthroughs on the nature of our universe.

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Einstein's Blunder Undone:
Exploding Stars and the Accelerating Cosmos

One of the great recent surprises in science is the extraordinary discovery by Kirshner and his colleagues that the expansion of the universe is accelerating under the influence of a mysterious dark energy. In a strange turn of events, the simplest form of the dark energy looks very much like a modern version of Einstein's cosmological constant – a theory which Einstein proposed but then retracted and has been dubbed ‘Einstein’s greatest blunder’.

Warned by Einstein's blunder, and contradicted by the initial results of a competing research group, Kirshner and his team were reluctant to accept their own result. But, convinced by evidence built on their understanding of exploding stars, they announced their conclusion in February 1998 – the universe is speeding up! We live in an extravagant universe with a surprising number of essential ingredients: the real universe we measure is not the simplest one we could imagine.

Watch the Lecture

You can watch the lecture here:

Alternatively:

• Watch the lecture on the R2 website
• Download the lecture from the R2 website
   

Venues

AUCKLAND

Date: Tuesday 10 November 2009, 7.30pm

Venue: Lecture Theatre 260-098, Owen G Glenn Building,
Business School, 12 Grafton Road,
The University of Auckland
(Enter Owen Glenn Building via main door off Grafton Road and follow the signs for the lecture)

• Download a map of the University of Auckland (PDF, 1 MB)

WELLINGTON

Date: Wednesday 11 November 2009, 6.00pm

Venue: Rutherford House Lecture Theatre 1,
Pipitea Campus,
Victoria University of Wellington
(Main entrance off Bunny Street)

CHRISTCHURCH

Date: Thursday 12 November 2009, 7.30pm

Venue: College Hall (formerly Great Hall),
The Arts Centre
cnr Worcester Blvd & Rolleston Ave

These lectures are open to the public and admission is FREE. No RSVP is required but you can reserve seats at speaker@royalsociety.org.nz (please indicate location), or, call Thomas Atkins on 4705785.