About this Event
📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email
🧠 Lecture: "Albert Einstein and James Webb Walk Into a Bar"
🎤 Speaker: Prof. Mike Gladders
Join us for a mind-bending evening as Prof. Mike Gladders takes you on a journey from Einstein’s theory to the cutting-edge images of the James Webb Space Telescope. We’ll begin with SMACS 0723, the first James Webb image unveiled at the White House in 2022, and explore how this distant cluster of galaxies bends and magnifies the light of galaxies even farther away.
Discover how strong gravitational lensing—once a theoretical prediction of General Relativity and a rare curiosity—has become a powerful tool for probing galaxy formation, dark matter, and the very nature of the universe. Through geometric examples, art, sculpture, and even wine glasses, Prof. Gladders will make these cosmic distortions vivid and accessible, before showcasing some of the most spectacular lensing observations yet seen, including brand-new data just months old.
Prof. Mike Gladders is an astrophysicist, telescope enthusiast, and professor at the University of Chicago since 2006. Author of over 260 scientific papers, he is a leading expert on strong gravitational lensing and helps develop the next-generation Giant Magellan Telescope in the Chilean Andes.
Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌
Agenda
6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.
6:55 PM – Host introduction
7:00 PM – Lecture begins
7:45 PM – Audience Q&A
8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round
8:30 PM – Wrap up.
Event venue & nearby stays
Logan Square, Logan Square, Chicago, United States
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