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Sievert Prize Lecture Archive

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Previous Years

2025

Effective Field Theory: A Universal Language of Physics

Join us each week for an exciting educational lecture by Alexander C. Edison, a theoretical physicist working in our Amplitudes and Insights group on formal relativistic quantum field theory and quantum gravity, binary black hole physics, and late-time cosmology.

  • January 11, 2025- Norris Northwestern Room 2-160 "Models and Predictions"
    • In our quest to uncover the fundamental properties of nature, physicists rely on learning to distinguish between known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. In this lecture, we will explore how to effectively describe the same system at many different scales, and the surprising connections this can lead to. View recording here
  • January 18, 2025- Norris Northwestern Room 2-160 "Gravity from Newton to Einstein"
    • We begin with a thought experiment: could we guess Newton’s theory of gravity without observing the planets and stars? From there, we explore how correcting small problems with Newtonian gravity leads us to Einstein’s general relativity. View recording here
  • January 25, 2025- Norris Lake Room 2-180 "Ripples from a Maelstrom"
    • General relativity predicts that black holes are some of the simplest objects in the universe, while their cousins, neutron stars, are some of the most complex. However, telling them apart from here on Earth requires understanding the subtly different way they produce gravitational waves. Measuring these waves requires the most precise rulers ever built. View recording here
  • February 1, 2025- Norris Northwestern Room 2-160 "Looking at Ever Smaller Scales"
    • For more than a hundred years, particle physicists have been smashing things together to figure out what makes up everything. At first, we were swamped with the number of new particles that appeared, but we were saved by a radically simple theory, the Standard Model, and a single minus sign. View recording here
  • February 8, 2025- Norris Northwestern Room 2-160 "The Standard Model is Almost Perfect"
    • The Standard Model of particle physics is one of the most precisely tested theories of nature, but there are still dark corners and unexplained pieces. What strange new models might clean up the messes hiding under the rug? View recording here
  • February 15, 2025- Norris Northwestern Room 2-160 "Baby Pictures of the Universe"
    • The earliest moments of the universe were incredibly chaotic, a time when matter and energy were indistinguishable. Learning about this period of time could answer many questions about the nature of the universe. Luckily, we have a window into that time through the Cosmic Microwave Background. View recording here
  • February 22, 2025- Norris Northwestern Room 2-160 "Galaxies: Glitter in a Snow Globe"
    • We find many answers about the early universe in a surprising place: the arrangement of galaxies in the night sky. But in order to take a peek, we need to know how the universe evolved from then to now. Our current best model? Galaxies are motes of light floating in a perfect liquid. View recording here
  • March 1, 2025- Norris Northwestern Room 2-160 "A Bright Future Ahead"
    • We close this lecture series with a look towards the future: exciting experiments on the horizon and mind-bending new perspectives from which to view the universe. View recording here

2024

Lectures: "Networks: From Brains and Quantum Internet to Climate Change"

Every Saturday at 11:00 AM from January 6-February 24 at Norris University Center at Northwestern University.

Join us each week for an exciting and educational lecture by Arthur Montanari, a researcher working at the Center for Network Dynamics at Northwestern. 

  • January 6, "Network Theory: A Theory of Almost Everything" Wildcat Room 1-101 View recording
    • Networks are everywhere. In nature, they regulate food webs, brain activity, and cellular processes. In engineering, they deliver energy and water, mediate traffic, and disseminate information. In society, they govern financial, social, and environmental dynamics. We explore the theory describing the science of interactions and its power to address disparate systems
  • January 13, "Emergence: Syncing Waves" Wildcat Room 1-101 View recording
    • Fireflies flashing together, waves formed in the brain, power-grid generators operating in coordination, and the way your body responds to day-night cycles. These systems are described by the phenomenon of synchronization. We break down and model the main actors responsible for this phenomenon in one equation. What the agents are, how they interact, and who they interact with.
  • January 20, "Anyone's Perspective is Wrong" Wildcat Room 1-101 View recording
    • Networks are more than the sum of the parts. Observing only the individual pieces of a network cannot give us the big picture. How intelligence emerges from neural networks? Who to test for the early detection of an epidemic outbreak? Why do your friends have more friends than you do? We discuss how reductionism is a powerful tool for the analysis of networks that must be used carefully.
  • January 27, "Why We Get Stuck and It is So Hard to Change" Northwestern Room 2-160 View recording
    • A new road that slows traffic, a top basketball player that lowers the team’s performance, or a new transmission line that reduces the grid efficiency. Additional resources are expected to improve performance, but lack of network cooperativity can lead to adverse outcomes. We examine such network paradoxes, when they appear, and why they cannot be avoided through unilateral changes.
  • February 3, "Cascades: The Achilles' Heel of Networks" Wildcat Room 1-101 View recording
    • Networks are known to be fairly resilient. However, when networks are hit the right way, damage can spread through a cascade and lead to the collapse of an entire system. We see this in blackouts, extinction events, and financial crashes. We show how simple models can describe network cascades and the obstacles to controlling them.
  • February 10, "Irreversibility: No Return Beyond the Tipping Point" Wildcat Room 1-101 View recording
    • Every system has an “equilibrium” state. Disturbances can alter this state and sometimes lead to irreversible changes. Reversible and irreversible changes are separated by tipping points, which are hard to predict but govern transitions from ecosystem shift to neurodegeneration. We show how theory can provide early warnings and control approaches to prevent and mitigate irreversible transitions
  • February 17, "Birds of Different Feathers" Wildcat Room 1-101 View Recording
    • Flocking, synchronization, and consensus are rhythmic dynamics. Do these behaviors require the agents to be identical or similar? Strikingly, coherent behavior often occurs not despite but because of the different inherent rhythms of the agents. We investigate the effects of diversity, heterogeneity, and disorder in a wide range of systems, from flocks to chaos.
  • February 24, "Outlook: The Advent of Network Technologies" Northwestern Room 2-160 View Recording
    • Network phenomena are not only recurring in physics but also used to develop new technologies. From social networks, self-driving vehicles, and smart grids to internet-of-things and quantum networks, we discuss the network foundation of many emerging technologies and related challenges.

2023

Lectures: "The Rise of Quantum Machines"

Every Saturday at 11:00 AM from January 7-February 25 at Norris University Center at Northwestern University.

Join us each week for an exciting and educational lecture by a Northwestern Researcher.  This eight-week series is on The Rise of Quantum Machines.

2022

SAPTAPARNA BHATTACHARYA

PH.D., BROWN UNIVERSITY
DISTINGUISHED RESEARCHER,
LHC PHYSICS CENTER, FERMILAB

Lectures: "Particle Physics After the Discovery of the Higgs Boson"

Every Saturday at 11:00 AM from June 18-August 6 at The Hive at McCormick Ford Motor Vehicle Engineering Design Center at Northwestern University.

 Join us each week for an exciting and educational lecture by distinguished researcher, Dr. Sapta Bhattacharya!