Galileo's Muse celebrates the surprising relationship between one of history's greatest scientists and the spirited music of late Renaissance Italy. Who would have thought the lute (a close cousin of the guitar) held the key to one of Galileo's most important breakthroughs? This concert shows how -- with lively music, engaging explanations, and a reenactment of the experiment that led Galileo to formulate the Law of Falling Bodies. Co-sponsored by the Doctoral Program in Music Performance.

#7564 - Wednesday, January 30, 8:00 PM (note later time)

What is the explanation for our love of music, rhythm and dance?  In this evening of erudition and performance, Columbia University neuroscientists Dave Sulzer (a.k.a. composer Dave Soldier) and John Krakauer will discuss the brain activity that makes us groove to the beat of music.  Krakauer co-directs the Motor Performance Laboratory and Soldier investigates synaptic connections that underlie memory, learning and behavior.  Featuring the premiere of Soldier’s "Trio for percussion and brain waves," a live performance/experiment with drummers and electroencephalographs.

#7533 - Monday, March 24, 6:30 PM

Listen to the podcast!
The NeuroScience of the Groove

The Olympic aquatics pavilion in Beijing resembles a box of bubbles. This extraordinary structure and the feat of engineering required to build it will be discussed by Denis Weaire, physics professor at Trinity College Dublin, who first observed the efficiency of bubble structures. He'll be joined by Daniel Brodkin, a principal in the New York office of the engineering firm Arup, famous for their design contributions to some of the greatest buildings of our times.

#7534 - Tuesday, April 1, 6:30 PM

Liz Lerman, choreographer, believes in the power of art to enhance civic dialogue.  Her new dance/theater piece, Ferocious Beauty: Genome, investigates the implications of genetic research.  Among her collaborators in creating the work was Bonnie Bassler, renowned Princeton University microbiologist, who will join her in a dialogue. The talk will be illustrated with video segments, providing a preview of the dance piece before its first performance in the New York area.

#7535 - Monday, April 7, 6:30 PM

Listen to the podcast!
Ferocious Beauty

A play reading about the moral dilemmas surrounding the building of The Bomb, written by French actor Olivier Treiner and his father, physicist Jacques Treiner, who will be present at the performance. How did American scientists wrestle with their concerns about the use of atomic weaponry? How did German scientists react to the bomb that leveled Hiroshima? The play, based in part on actual transcripts of conversations, delves into these complex issues. Reading by Break A Leg Productions.

#7567 - Thursday, April 24, 6:30 PM

From space travel and genetic engineering to global warming, science is portrayed on movie screens with fact and fantasy, and scientists are heroes, nerds, and villains.  Sidney Perkowitz, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics at Emory University and author of the new book Hollywood Science, discusses the portrayal of science in films, from science fiction to scientific biographies and documentaries, and screens some examples.

#7536 - Tuesday, April 29, 6:30 PM

Who deserves the Nobel Prize for the discovery of oxygen? Three scientists -- Lavoisier, Priestley, and Scheele -- lay claim to the prize in this play, written by two renowned chemists, Carl Djerassi and Roald Hoffmann.  The play, which takes place in both 1777 and 2001, examines the nature of discovery and the desire for recognition that motivated scientists then as now.   Reading by Break A Leg Productions.
Limited seating. 

This event is FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED.
A World Science Festival event

#7568 - Thursday, May 29, 6:30 PM

May 29, 30, 31

The young Einstein dreams...

Berne, Switzerland, 1905: Einstein is a modest patent clerk in a new marriage, struggling to make ends meet while in the back of his mind re-conceiving time!

This brilliant new stage adaptation by Wesley Savick of Alan Lightman's internationally acclaimed novel Einstein's Dreams will be performed by Boston's Underground Railway Theater. The play, an inventive, poetic and charming work, was the inaugural event in a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Underground Railway Theater, conceived to develop new plays about science. The performances will be followed by informal discussions with guest writers.

General admission $20.  Purchase Tickets:

A World Science Festival event

Thursday, May 29, 8:00 PM
Alan Lightman - post-performance discussion

Lightman's novel Einstein's Dreams was an international bestseller and has been translated into thirty languages. Both a distinguished physicist and an accomplished novelist, Lightman was the first professor at MIT to receive a joint appointment in the sciences and the humanities.

AND

Walter Isaacson - post-performance discussion

Isaacson is President of the Aspen Institute.  He has been Chairman of CNN and the editor of Time Magazine.  He is the author of Einstein: His Life and Universe.

Friday, May 30, 8:00 PM

Alan Lightman - post-performance discussion

INovelist Lightman returns for a second discussion.

Saturday, May 31, 2:00 PM
Alan J. Friedman - post-performance discussion

Co-author of Einstein as Myth and Muse, published by Cambridge University Press.  For 22 years Dr. Friedman served as Director of the New York Hall of Science, New York City's public science-technology center.

Press Materials Here

The plays ICSI and Taboos dramatize -- with wit -- the social transformations and contested viewpoints created by advances in reproductive science. Readings from the plays will be performed by the theater company Break a Leg Productions. Playwright Carl Djerassi is "the father of The Pill" (he was awarded the National Medal of Science for the first synthesis of an oral contraceptive) and has had a prolific additional career as a writer of fiction and plays about science. Produced by Redshift Productions in collaboration with Science & the Arts.

Thursday, July 31, 7:00 PM