Please join the Aspen Science Center and the Aspen Center for Physics for an evening of Science!

Aspen Science Center will also be hosting the Jane and Bill Frazer Physics Café Series prior to and in co-partnership with the Aspen Center for Physics DeWolf Lecture Series. The Cafes are a family-friendly, fun, informal pre-lecture gathering. Café attendees will have a chance to ask questions and hear each speaker share their career path, research, and subjects of interest.

The Jane and Bill Frazer Physics Cafés will begin at 4:30 pm in the theater and go until 5:15 pm with the Aspen Center for Physics DeWolf Lecture beginning shortly after at 5:30 pm with a Q & A session at the end.

A note from the Wheeler: “Secure your FREE ticket in advance at aspenshowtix.com, call 970.920.5770 or stop by the box office. Seating will be at half capacity to accommodate social distancing. Come prepared to sit with your group providing ample distance from other groups in the venue. Seating is General Admission and the balcony will be open to accommodate for more seating.

Wheeler Venue COVID Protocols

All patrons 12 years and older must provide valid proof of full vaccination 14 days prior to attendance OR proof of a third-party negative PCR or Antigen COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of attendance. Children ages 2 to 12 must have proof of a negative COVID test. No at-home or antibody tests will be accepted.

Please bring legible proof of vaccination or negative test result and Photo ID for verification. Digital images or photocopies are acceptable. Masks are required for all attendees over the age of 2. Masks must comply with the CDC recommendation.

Physics Cafe’ and Lecture Series dates are as follows:

January 5, 2022
From the Possibility to the Certainty of a Supermassive Black Hole
Speaker: Andrea Ghez, UCLA, 2020 Nobel Prize Winner

Through the capture and analysis of twenty years of high-resolution imaging, the UCLA Galactic Center Group has moved the case for a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way from a possibility to a certainty and provided the best evidence to date for the existence of these truly exotic objects. This was made possible with the first measurements of stellar orbits around a galactic nucleus. Further advances in state-of-the-art high-resolution imaging technology on the world’s largest telescopes expanded the power of using stellar orbits to reveal an environment around the black hole that is quite unexpected: young stars where there should be none, a lack of old stars where there should be many, and a puzzling new class of objects. Continued measurements of the motions of stars have solved some of these puzzles and this approach is now being used to understand the physics of gravity near a black hole and the role that black holes play in the formation, growth and evolution of galaxies.

January 12, 2022 *will be held on Zoom
Topic: Quantum Simulation of Relativistic Physics with Atomic Bose-Einstein Condensates
Speaker: Ian Spielman, National Institute of Standards and Technology

January 26, 2022
Topic: Quantum Phenomena at the Human Scale
Speaker: Steven Kivelson, Stanford University

February 9, 2022
Topic: Geometry and String Theory Confronting Black Holes and Particle Physics
Speaker: Mirjam Cvetic, University of Pennsylvania

February 16, 2022
Topic: Engineering Gravitational Theories
Speaker: Alejandra Castro, University of Amsterdam

March 16, 2022
Topic: JWST Comes to Life!
Speaker: Garth Illingworth, University of California Santa Cruz

March 23, 2022
Topic: The Genealogy of the Milky Way and its Missing Dark Matter
Speaker: Lina Necib, MIT 

March 30, 2022
Topic: The Physics of Penguin Aggregations
Speaker: Heather Lynch, Stonybrook University