Kavli Institute For Cosmological Physics
From Slackerpedia Galactica
The Kavli Institute For Cosmological Physics (KICP) is one of the world's leading institutes for cosmology research. It is located at the University of Chicago and endowed in part by the Kavli Foundation.
Aaron spent a week there in May of 2007 to develop a slate of cosmological material for the Slackerpedia Galactica podcasts and web site. Below is an index of what was produced:
Contents |
Audio Podcast Interviews
- Dr. John Carlstrom: KICP and the South Pole Telescope.
- Dr. Andrey Kravtsov: Dark matter, simulations and teaching astronomy 101
- Dr. Clem Pryke: The Big Bang, CMB and QUAD
- Dr. Jim Cronin: Dr. Cronin is a winner of the 1980 nobel prize for physics. He talks about his recent project to detect cosmic rays with AUGER.
- Dr. Michael Turner: Dr. Turner is one of the cosmology "rock stars". He coined the term dark energy in 1998. In this interview, we revisit a 10-year checklist for cosmology he published in a 1998 paper titled "Cosmology Solved? Quite Probably!"
- Dr. Josh Frieman: Dark energy
- Dr. Stephan Meyer: Dr. Meyer has been involved with almost every major CMB discovery in the past two decades. In this interview he describes the evolution of the field and where we are going next.
- Dr. Lucy Fortson: Dr. Fortson talks about the VERITAS gamma-ray telescope and the role of astronomy research in public institutions
Second Life Interview
On May 17, Dr. Chris Thom was a guest at the Slacker Planetarium for a 1-hour chat. He talked about being part of a recent discovery about dating the oldest stars and other general cosmology issues. We intend to make this a sorta regular feature in the coming months. A transcript is here.
Kavli Cosmology Segment
We recorded the first edition of a new segment about cosmology that will appear, hopefully, in every Slackerpedia Galactica chit chat episode. This one was about taking the WMAP data and turning it into the pretty picture we all know and love. It should appear in SG 6.0.
Cosmologist Roundtable
We attempted to record a table of cosmologists drinking and talking one evening at a pub. However, it turned out to have a bowling alley in the back! So we're not sure if we can save the sound. If we do, we'll make a short episode out of it and link to it here and on the feed.
Video Podcasts
We're working on two video podcasts. One involves animations by Andrey of structure formation in the early Universe. The other involves a deep sub basement lab run by Dr. Juan Collar to detect a possible dark matter particle referred to as a WIMP. The videos should be ready by mid June.
Blog Entries
Aaron also wrote daily blog entries here.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the Director of Education and Outreach at KICP, Randy Landsberg, for supporting this trip and lining up the interviews. And also to all the KICP staff, faculty and students for their help in making it a fun trip. And to Slashdot for mentioning the Michael Turner show.
