Friday, October 21, 2011
Dr. Freeman J. Dyson, one of the nationòÀÙs most renowned physicists, and professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., will open the AAAòÀÙs 2011-2012 lecture series Friday, October 21, when he speaks on òÀÜOther Ways of Looking for Life in the Sky.òÀÝ The free public lecture begins at 6:15 p.m. in the KaufmannˆàTheater of the AMNH.
DysonòÀÙs talk will be the clubòÀÙs annual John Marshall Memorial Lecture, honoring a past president and executive director who was instrumental in the AAAòÀÙs growth. Marshall died in 1997.
Noting that heòÀÙs always had a strong interest in the search for extraterrestrial life, the 87-year-old Dyson tellsEyepieceˆàheòÀÙll talk about neglected opportunities to search for life in the universe. òÀÜAll the media hype is concentrated on planets as the places to look for life. Planets are certainly worth exploring, but IòÀÙve made a $100 bet that the first discovery of extraterrestrial life will not be on a planet.
òÀÜMost of the real estate, measured by surface area and not by mass, isnòÀÙt on planets. This is true for the solar system and for the universe. Most of the real estate is on small objects: comets, asteroids, moons and dust grains. Most of the real estate is cold and icy rather than warm and wet. The basic characteristic of life is to be adaptable to harsh conditions. If life is loose in the universe, it will probably have spread to the small, cold objects where most of the real estate and most of the accessible food is to be found. I will discuss ways of looking for life in new ways and in unlikely places.òÀÝ
There are two reasons why the search for life in unlikely places is important, Dyson asserts. òÀÜFirst, thereòÀÙs always a small chance weòÀÙll find an alien life form which will cause a revolution in our understanding of biology. Second, even if we find no aliens, the search will give us abundant new information and understanding of the non-living universe.òÀÝ
A native of England, Dyson graduated from the University of Cambridge and came to theˆàUnited Statesˆàas a Commonwealth Fellow at Cornell. He settled in theˆàUnited Statesˆàpermanently in 1951, became a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1953, and retired as professor emeritus in 1994.
Dyson began his career as a mathematician but then turned to new developments in physics in the 1940s, particularly the theory of quantized fields. He wrote two papers on the foundations of quantum electrodynamicsˆàthat have had a lasting influence on many branches of modern physics. He went on to work in condensed-matter physics, statistical mechanics, nuclear engineering, climate studies, astrophysics, and biology.