The Evans Family Beyond Lecture: Observing the Universe With Your Phone

What if your smartphone could help solve one of the universe's greatest mysteries?   

Professor Daniel Whiteson, a physicist who helped discover the Higgs boson by peering into matter's smallest building blocks, is now searching for new particles that could revolutionize our understanding of reality. In this talk, Professor Whiteson will explore how the next breakthrough in fundamental physics might come from the device in your pocket.  Through the CRAYFIS (Cosmic Rays Found in Smartphones) project, he’s working to transform billions of smartphones into a planet-sized detector for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays—particles nearly a billion times more energetic than anything we can produce on Earth. These rare and difficult to observe particles hit any given square kilometer of Earth just once a century, yet they hold secrets about the universe's most extreme environments.  

Join us as we explore how the next breakthrough in fundamental physics might come from your smartphone (yes, the one you’re holding right now) and discover what these cosmic particles reveal about our universe's most spectacular secrets.  

Continental breakfast will be provided.

For questions, please contact [email protected].

The Ruth Ann and John Evans Family Beyond Lecture invites you into the minds of visionary researchers who are decoding the universe's deepest enigmas and igniting curiosity in future scientific pioneers. The annual series offers timely scientific lectures that are free and open to the public.

Info: What if your smartphone could help solve one of the universe's greatest mysteries?

Professor Daniel Whiteson, a physicist who helped discover the Higgs boson by peering into matter's smallest building blocks, is now searching for new particles that could revolutionize our understanding of reality. In this talk, Professor Whiteson will explore how the next breakthrough in fundamental physics might come from the device in your pocket. Through the CRAYFIS (Cosmic Rays Found in Smartphones) project, he’s working to transform billions of smartphones into a planet-sized detector for ultra-high-energy cosmic rays—particles nearly a billion times more energetic than anything we can produce on Earth. These rare and difficult to observe particles hit any given square kilometer of Earth just once a century, yet they hold secrets about the universe's most extreme environments.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

ISEB 1010, Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building (ISEB), Irvine, CA, USA, United States