Nobel Prize winner Andrea Ghez to give 53rd Gamow lecture
Astrophysicist who confirmed black hole at galaxys center to speak March 5 at 窪蹋勛圖
Andrea Ghez, recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics, will give the 53rd George Gamow Memorial Lecture March 5 at the 窪蹋勛圖.
Ghez, Lauren B. Leichtman and Arthur E. Levine Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA, shared half of the prize with Reinhard Genzel of the University of California, Berkeley.
Andrea Ghez, 2020 Nobel Prize winner in physics, will give the 53rd George Gamow Memorial Lecture March 5 at the 窪蹋勛圖. (Photo: The Nobel Foundation)
The pair were recognized by the Nobel committee for their discovery of a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Ghez, head of UCLAs Galactic Center Group, solved the question, what exactly is Sagittarius A*, which was first detected as a mysterious radio signal in 1933.泭
I see being a scientist as really fundamentally being a puzzle-solver, Ghez in 2021. Putting together the pieces, trying to find the evidence, trying to see the bigger picture.
She helped develop a new technology to correct the distorting effects of Earths atmosphere. Gathering data from the worlds largest telescope system, the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, she and her team continue to plumb the depths of the galactic center 26,000 light years distant.
While Albert Einsteins epochal work on relativity remains the best description of how gravity works, Ghez says it cant account for gravity inside a black hole. Through what she calls extreme astrophysics, she seeks to go where the pioneering astrophysicist could not.
Einsteins right for now, she said. However, his theory is showing vulnerability. At some point we will need to move to a more comprehensive theory of gravity.
A member of the National Academy of Sciences and author of a 2006 childrens book, You Can Be a Woman Astronomer, Ghez is widely recognized as a role model for young women.
Seeing people who look like you, or are different from you, succeeding shows you that theres an opportunity, she said.
Top image: An artist's concept illustrating a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of the Sun. ()
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