Popular Talks

From Mica

MICA Popular Talks

This is a series of popular talks organized by Dr. Rob Knop. They were originally known as Dr. Knop Talks Astronomy because Dr. Knop was giving the majority of them, but they've since expanded to feature a wide range of speakers.

They are held most Saturdays at 10:00 AM Pacific Time (SL Time), at the Large Amphitheater in the sim named StellaNova.

See Upcoming Public Events for talks that will be coming in the near future.

Fall 2010 Schedule of Speakers

Previous Talks

June 5, 2010 at 10:00AM PDT: Giuseppe Longo, From Fixed Stars to Sidereal Astronomy

May 22, 2010 at 10:00AM PDT: Rob Knop, A History of the Universe

May 15, 2010 at 10:00AM PDT: Rob Knop, Were the Fundamental Constants of Physics Different in the Early Universe?

May 8, 2010 at 10:00AM PDT: Rob Knop, The "Paradoxes" of Special Relativity

May 1, 2010 at 10:00AM PDT: Alan Boyle, The Case for Pluto

April 24, 2010 at 10:00AM PDT: V.G. Gurzadyan, Astronomy and Dating the Fall of Babylon

April 17, 2010 at 10:00AM PDT: Giuseppe Longo, The Beginnings of Planetary Observations

April 10, 2010 at 10:00AM PDT: Rob Knop, Understanding Relativity With Spacetime Diagrams

April 3, 2010 at 10:00AM PDT: Arjen van Elteren and Piet Hut, Panel Discussion on Joint Software Development for Simulations - the case of AMUSE

March 20, 2010 at 10:00AM PDT: Giuseppe Longo, Scientific Frauds? A tour of some types of “true” or presumed scientific hoaxes

March 13, 2010 at 10:00AM PST: Dave Goldberg, The Physics of Time Travel

March 6, 2010 at 10:00AM PST: Jeff Kanipe, The Cosmic Connection: How Astronomical Events Impact Life on Earth

February 27, 2010 at 10:00AM PST: Rob Knop, The Shape of the Universe

February 20, 2010 at 10:00AM PST: Space Astronomy and Time Astronomy, an open discussion led by Piet Hut and Rob Knop

February 13, 2010 at 10:00AM PST: Pamela Gay, Ten Weird Things About the Solar System That We Don't Understand

February 6, 2010 at 10:00AM PST: Sean Carroll, From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time

January 30, 2010 at 10:00AM PST: John Mather, From the Big Bang to the Nobel Prize and the End of the Universe

January 23, 2010 at 10:00AM PST: Giuseppe Longo, The Ancient Roots of Astronomy

January 16, 2010 at 10:00AM PST: Rob Knop, Black Holes and the Formation of Galaxies

December 26, 2009 at 10:00AM PST: Giuseppe Longo, The Christmas Star: What Does The Astronomy Say About It?

December 20, 2009 at 10:00AM PST: Giuseppe Longo, The CRAB Supernova cover-up: SN1054 between science and history

December 12, 2009 at 10:00AM PST: Rob Knop, Black Holes: Misconceptions, and the Startling Truth

November 28, 2009 at 10:00AM PST: Rob Knop, Understanding Redshift: Doppler, Gravitational, Cosmological

November 14, 2009 at 10:00AM PST: Pamela Gay, Understanding Where the Stars Are Tonight

October 31, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, Nebulae in Space: What Makes them Glow?

October 24, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: George Djorgovski, Dark Mysteries: What is the Universe Made of?

October 17, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT : Rob Knop, Whence Cosmic Rays?

October 10, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: Giuseppe Longo (University of Naples Federico II, Italy), William Herschel and the Birth of Modern Astronomy

October 3, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: Pamela Gay, How we know the Big Bang is true

September 19, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, Double and Triple Stars: Solving the 3-Body Problem

September 5, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, The Stars in a Galaxy

August 22, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: Pamela Gay, Citizen Science

August 8, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, Comets Crashing into Jupiter

June 27, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, Superluminal Jets in Quasars

June 13, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: George Djorgovski, The World of Galaxies

May 30, 2009 at 10:00AM PDT: Rob Knop, Time Dilation and Simultaneity in Special Relativity

May 16, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, The Most Distant Explosion: Gamma Ray Burst 090423

May 2, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, How we know that Dark Matter exists

April 18, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, Neptune and Vulcan: Dark Matter in the Solar System

April 4, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, The Discovery of the Accelerating Universe

March 21, 2009 at 10:00 AM PDT: George Djorgovski, Black Holes, Bright Lights: Quasars as Probes of the Early Universe

March 7, 2009 at 10:00 AM PST: Rob Knop, A Snapshot of the Early Universe: The Cosmic Microwave Background

February 21, 2009 at 10:00 AM PST: Rob Knop, Hamlet's Supernova: the 1572 Explosion in Cassiopeia

January 31, 2009 at 10:00 AM PST: Rob Knop, Colliding Galaxies in a Virtual Universe

December 20, 2008 at 10:00 AM PST: Rob Knop, Nature's Telescope, Nature's Scale: Gravitational Lensing

December 6, 2008 at 10:00 AM PST: Rob Knop, Supermassive Black Holes at the Cores of Galaxies

November 22, 2008 at 10:00 AM PST: Rob Knop, Direct Imaging of Extrasolar Planets

November 8, 2008 at 10:00 AM PST: Sean Carroll, The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time

October 25, 2008 at 10:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, Galaxies in Collision

October 10, 2008 at 8:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, We Are Starstuff: the Cosmic Origins of the Chemical Elements

September 19, 2008 at 8:00 AM PDT: George Djorgovski, Dark Mysteries: What is the Universe Made of?

September 5, 2008 at 8:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, The Continuing Copernican Revolution: from Heliocentricity to the Cosmological Principle

August 1, 2008 at 8:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, Planets Around Other Stars

June 27, 2008 at 8:00 AM PDT: George Djorgovski, Virtual Observatory, and Information-Rich Astronomy in the 21st Century

June 12, 2008 at 10:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, Kepler, Newton, and Einstein : "Wrong" theories and the progress of science

May 2, 2008 at 8:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, In Fire and In Ice : The Death of Stars

April 4, 2008 at 8:00 AM PDT: Rob Knop, The Power of the Dark Side: How Dark Matter and Dark Energy dominate our Universe

Bonus Talks (Partial Listing)

May 10, 2008 at 1:00 PM PDT: George Djorgovski, The Dark Mysteries: What is the Universe Made Of? (Link is to a PDF file with the slides). (This talk was given as part of a special festival to celebrate Richard Feynman's birthday on May 11.)

April 29, 2009 at 9:00 AM PDT: Troy McConaghy - "SL is Already Fairly Interoperable" - Audio Recording

May 6, 2009 at 9:00 AM PDT: Wagner James Au (author of the SL blog "New World Notes") talked about his history with SL and the future of SL. Audio Recording

May 20, 2009 at 9:00 AM PDT: Pooky Amsterdam talked about "SL as a Media Platform" - Audio Recording

June 3, 2009 at 9:00 AM PDT: Max Chatnoir talked about her experiences using SL to teach genetics to university students - Slides (PDF) - Audio recording (MP3)

June 10, 2009 at 9:00 AM PDT: Hackshaven Harford from NOAA talked about government in Virtual Worlds - Poster - Slides (PPTX) - Movie 1 - Movie 2 - Movie 3 - Audio recording (MP3)

June 24, 2009 at 9:00 AM PDT: David Burden (RL name), CEO of Daden gave a talk titled "Datascapes and Semantic Virtual Worlds" - Audio Recording (MP3)

July 1, 2009 at 9:00 AM PDT: Damon Hernandez on X3D and Web3D standards - Audio Recording (MP3)

July 8, 2009 at 9:00 AM PDT: Aaron Walsh, founding director of The Grid Institute talked about The Media Grid - Audio Recording (MP3) - Slideshow

July 27, 2009 : George Djorgovski, MICA, Science and Scholarship in Virtual Worlds . (This talk was given at the Facets of Virtual Worlds conference-Berlin July 2009)

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