About this Event
Welcome to Binge Thinking. We invite professors and experts to give lectures in bars around Boston, NYC, and DC!
In a world of AI slop, doomscrolling and brainrot, Binge Thinking brings real experts into real places for nights of learning, conversation, and community.
Think Responsibly.
TOPIC:
SYNERGISTIC ASTROPHYSICS and the Art of Scientific Discovery
SPEAKER:
Dr. Szabolcs Márka, Columbia University
For most of history, we studied the universe with one sense: sight. Telescopes caught light, and light was all we had. Then, in 2015, scientists "heard" something for the first time: gravitational waves, tiny ripples in spacetime from two black holes colliding over a billion years ago. Einstein predicted them a century earlier and doubted we would ever detect them.
Now we can catch gravitational waves, ghostly particles called neutrinos, and light from the same cosmic events. Put them together and you get something like surround sound for the universe. This new, all-hands-on-deck approach blends physics, math, and big ideas, making it the ultimate playground for the modern polymath.
In this talk, Dr. Szabolcs Márka, one of the co-discoverers of gravitational waves, takes us inside this new era of astronomy and shares what the thrill of discovery actually feels like from the inside.
Topics include:
How scientists finally "heard" the universe through gravitational waves
What neutrinos are and why these nearly invisible particles matter
Why combining cosmic messengers reveals more than any one alone
What history teaches us about how science quietly changes what we believe
Why curiosity, creativity, and a little art are secret ingredients of breakthroughs
Beyond the physics, this is a story about how discovery really happens.
Big breakthroughs rarely arrive with fireworks. They build slowly, through curiosity, collaboration, and people willing to chase the unknown. This talk explores how research, insight, and imagination fuel the joy of discovery, and why that joy belongs to all of us.
About the Speaker
Dr. Szabolcs Márka is the Walter O. LeCroy, Jr. Professor of Physics at Columbia University and a co-discoverer of cosmic gravitational waves. He studied at Kossuth Lajos University in Hungary and earned his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University, then conducted postdoctoral research at Cornell University and Caltech before joining Columbia in 2004.
His research spans astrophysics, biophysics, nuclear physics, and particle physics, with over 900 publications and several patents to his name. He is a recipient of the Blavatnik Prize and a co-recipient of the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, the Gruber Cosmology Prize, the Princess of Asturias Award, the Einstein Medal, and the Bruno Rossi Prize. At Columbia, he also teaches the popular "Physics for Poets."
Agenda
7:00 PM - Doors Open (Grab a seat and drinks!)
7:30 PM - Lecture Begins
8:10 PM - Audience Q&A
8:30 PM - Drinks & Conversation
9:00 PM - Event Ends
Event venue & nearby stays
Downtime, 25 Avenue B, New York, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.