SETI Institute Colloquium Series Videos

Professor Charles Townes, UC Berkeley (1964 Nobel Prize winner for Physics for the invention of the laser) Professor Townes is the 1964 Nobel prize winner for fundamental work in the field of quantum electronics, which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser-laser principle. He is a former member of the SETI Institute board. His presentation will focus on the fact that many of the most important discoveries have been unpredicted surprises, hence we need to search intensely and hopefully. He will illustrate this with his own personal history, and other interesting examples that he knows well. Watch video

Professor Lynn Cominsky, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sonoma State University NASA's Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) mission was launched into orbit on June 11, 2008. GLAST's mission is to explore the most energetic and exotic objects in the cosmos: blazing galaxies, intense stellar explosions and super-massive black holes. All the instruments on board are working well, and details of the hardware for Large Area Telescope and the GLAST Burst Monitor are described, along with opportunities for ground-based astronomers to get involved with GLAST. Professor Cominsky will present the first exciting results from the mission. Watch video