Free Public Lecture on Black Holes November 14, 2012

Dr. Roger Blandford of Stanford's Kavli Institute, will give a free, illustrated, non-technical talk on:

Black Holes: The End of Time or a New Beginning?

as part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures, in the Smithwick Theater, Foothill College, El Monte Road and Freeway 280, in Los Altos Hills, California 94022.

Parking on campus costs $3. Call the series hot-line at 650-949-7888 for more information and driving directions.

While black holes are popularly associated with death and doom, astrophysicists increasingly see them as creators not destroyers. New research suggests that black holes play a major role in the formation and evolution of galaxies, stars, and planets. Dr. Blandford will summarize why scientists now think that black holes (of various sizes) actually do exist, describe some of their strange properties, and explain their "environmental impact" on the universe at large. The talk will conclude with a preview of some new approaches to learning about the weird and wonderful behavior of black holes.

A native of England, Roger Blandford took his degrees at Cambridge University where he was supervised by Martin Rees (now the Astronomer Royal). He joined the faculty at Caltech in 1976, and was appointed the Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics in 1989. In 2003, he moved to Stanford University to become the first Director of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology and the Luke Blossom Chair in the School of Humanities and Science. At Stanford, he divides his time between the Physics Department and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. His research interests include black holes, cosmology, gravitational lensing, cosmic ray physics, and compact stars.

Foothill College is just off the El Monte Road exit from Freeway 280 in Los Altos. For directions and parking information, see: http://www.foothill.edu/news/transportation.php
For a campus map, see: http://www.foothill.edu/news/maps.php

The lecture is co-sponsored by:
* NASA Ames Research Center
* The Foothill College Astronomy Program
* The SETI Institute
* The Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Past Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures are now available in MP3 format at: http://www.astrosociety.org/education/podcast/index.html

Official Website: http://www.foothill.edu/ast