02/12/2009: "Hidden extra dimensions and short distance gravity,"

San Juan Nature Institute in collaboration with UW Friday Harbor Labs presents the 2009 Arthur Whiteley Lecture Series

Eric Adelberger, Emeritus Professor of Physics at University of Washington, is the speaker at the second Arthur Whiteley Lecture to be held at 7 p.m. in The Commons, UW Friday Harbor Labs on Thursday February 12. He has changed his title to: “Hidden extra dimensions and short distance gravity”.

Our speaker will discus how remarkable small scale experiments can address important open issues in fundamental science such: “why is gravity so weak compared to all the other fundamental forces?” String theory ideas (extra space dimensions and new particles) hint that the extraordinary weakness of gravity could be understood if Newton’s Inverse Square law breaks down at distances less than 1 m.

We will learn that the notion of more than three dimensions in space is not ridiculous, and how to design and experiment to measure gravity at short distances. Dr Adelberger will describe the techniques used in recent experiments that studied gravity over extremely short distances no bigger than the diameter of a human hair. These experiments reveal that any extra dimension must be even smaller than that.

Like the previous lecture on Stardust this lecture will stretch the imagination and illustrate how scientists go about the business of challenging and testing hypotheses. Our speaker is a member of the Academy of Sciences and several other scientific bodies. He has spoken on this subject throughout the country.

San Juan Nature Institute is proud to present world class science to island audiences free of charge and extends an open invitation to the public to attend their Arthur Whiteley Lecture series.