The phenomenon of black holes and early discoveries of the universe by astronomer Edwin Hubble are the topics of two in-person seminars, featuring lecturer Marcia Bartusiak, Professor Emeritus from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both on Wednesday, November 8. The public is invited to attend both seminars in person or via Zoom.
These presentations are offered as part of the Distinguished Lecturer Series provided to the Jackson River Governor’s School at Mountain Gateway Community College by the Greenbrier Valley Chapter of Sigma Xi and MGCC.
The topic of the morning session, beginning at 9:00 am in Room 424, Warren Hall, on the MGCC Clifton Forge campus, is ”The Biography of a Black Hole: How an Idea Once Hated by Physicists Came to Be Loved.” The seminar is also available via Zoom at https://vccs.zoom.us/j/88293728780?pwd=c2N0ajVMTWFoVHhuM2R6NTd3QlpLdz09 Phone in: 301-715-8592 Meeting ID: 882 9372 8780 Passcode: 176412
The topic of the afternoon session, beginning at 12 noon, is “Edwin Hubble Discovers the Modern Universe, 1923-24: A Centennial Celebration.” This session will take place in the 2nd Year Classroom of the original main building of the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg, WV, with lunch provided for the first 50. This session is also being offered by the Greenbrier Valley chapter of Sigma Xi as well as WVSOM. The afternoon session will be available for other participants via Zoom: https://vccs.zoom.us/j/85921554770?pwd=cEUrRU41TnlEb2I1NUJJdjRMU0tkUT09 Phone in: 301-715-8592 Meeting ID: 859 2155 4770 Passcode: 319630
Sigma Xi is the Scientific Research Honor Society for scientists and engineers. It was founded at Cornell University by a faculty member and a small group of graduate students in 1886 and is one of the oldest and most prestigious honor societies.
Combining her undergraduate training in journalism with a master’s degree in physics, Marcia Bartusiak has been covering the fields of astronomy and physics for four decades. A Professor of the Practice Emeritus in the Graduate Program in Science Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she has written for a variety of publications--including Science, Smithsonian, Discover, National Geographic, Technology Review, and Astronomy--and reviews science books for both The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. She is also the author of seven books, including "Einstein's Unfinished Symphony," her award-winning history of gravitational-wave astronomy, "Black Hole," and "The Day We Found the Universe" on the birth of modern cosmology, which won the Davis Prize of the History of Science Society.
In 1982, she was the first woman to win the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award and five years later was a finalist in NASA‘s Journalist-in-Space competition. She has also received the AIP Gemant Award, the Klumpke-Roberts Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and in 2008 was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, cited for “exceptionally clear communication of the rich history, the intricate nature, and the modern practice of astronomy to the public at large.” She resides in Sudbury, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, with her husband mathematician Stephen Lowe and their dog Hubble.