Institute for Advanced Study
Olden Lane Princeton, NJ 08540
Tel: (609) 734-8200
Fax: (609) 683-7605
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: October 30, 1995
Contact: Norman McNatt (609) 734-8239 [ mcnatt@math.ias.edu ]
Dark Matter, Black Holes, and
Exploding Stars in Institute
Astrophysicist's Lecture
On Wednesday, November 1, 1995 Professor John N. Bahcall of the
Institute for Advanced Study will present a lecture entitled
"Recent Discoveries with the Hubble Space Telescope." The lecture,
the first of the Institute's 1995-96 Faculty Lecture Series, is
intended for a general audience and is open to the public. It will
take place at 4:30 PM in Wolfensohn Hall on the Institute's Olden
Lane, Princeton Township campus. A reception will follow in the
Common Room of Fuld Hall.
Professor Bahcall's talk will feature color images of planets in
our solar system, candidate planets in other solar systems,
exploding stars, searches for dark matter, a massive black hole,
galaxies from different epochs, and the most luminous, distant
objects known to exist in the universe.
Dr. Bahcall received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1961 and became a
member of the Faculty of the Institute's School of Natural
Sciences ten years later. In 1976 he was elected to the National
Academy of Science and to the American Academy of Arts and
Letters. For more than twenty years he has been involved in the
national scientific leadership of astrophysics and astronomy
research programs, and his advocacy to Congress and NASA officials
of the scientific potential of a large telescope in space played a
pivotal role in the eventual development of the Hubble Space
Telescope. He helped to maintain HST's credibility as a research
tool after the optical flaw in the Hubble's mirror was discovered,
and since the Hubble's successful repair, he has had a lead role
in its use for research. In 1992 he was awarded NASA's
Distinguished Public Service Medal for his leadership role in the
Hubble Space Telescope Program.
Bahcall's scientific work with HST has yielded numerous
significant findings, including the detection of a high density of
hydrogen clouds near the Milky Way galaxy, something not expected
on the basis of the previous understanding of how stars and
galaxies evolved in the Big Bang theory.
He has also used the Hubble to find the most distant known
gravitational lens, confirming that Einstein's theory of
relativity applies at very large distances from the earth. And
most recently he has been involved in research which casts doubt
on accepted views of the mass and composition of the universe.
Another of his interests is solar neutrinos, mass-less or low mass
particles emitted by fusion reactions on the sun's surface.
At the beginning of the 1990's Bahcall chaired the National
Academy of Sciences' Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee
which recommended priorities for both space and ground-based
astrophysical projects for the decade ahead. Its report, known as
the Bahcall Report in recognition of his leadership, has been
hailed as a comprehensive and scientifically meritorious
prospectus for the next decade's major efforts. He is past
president of the American Astronomical Society, and has numerous
publications and honors to his credit.
Astrophysics has been part of the Institute for Advanced Study
since the 1950's. A private, independent center founded by the
Bamberger family in 1930 to support advanced scholarship and
fundamental research, the Institute has drawn to New Jersey some
of the best known and most accomplished thinkers of the twentieth
century in a wide range of fields.
It is made up of four Schools, Historical Studies, Mathematics,
Natural Sciences, and Social Science, each with a small permanent
Faculty of distinguished scholars. About 160 visiting Members are
in residence each year, younger postdoctoral scholars as well as
more senior researchers, usually including ten to twenty
astrophysicists . Members are selected competitively and come from
more than a hundred higher education institutions in twenty to
thirty countries.