Antimatter is one of the most fascinating discoveries in modern physics. First predicted theoretically by Paul Dirac in 1928 and experimentally discovered by Carl Anderson in 1932, antimatter revealed that every particle of ordinary matter has a mirror-image partner with opposite electric charge. When matter and antimatter meet, they annihilate and release enormous amounts of energy according to Einstein’s famous relation E=mc^2. Antimatter has become central to modern physics, helping scientists test the foundations of quantum theory, relativity, and cosmology. It also plays an important practical role in medicine through Positron Emission Tomography (PET), one of the most powerful imaging techniques in modern healthcare. This lecture explores the discovery of antimatter, its strange physical properties, how it is produced and studied in laboratories such as CERN in Geneva, and why the mystery of the universe’s missing antimatter remains one of the greatest unsolved problems in science.

During his career Fred Dylla has spent 55 years as an enquiring physicist helping to design and build scientific facilities for fusion energy, nuclear physics, medical and materials research. He spent eight years at MIT earning three degrees in physics followed by research and teaching ventures at Princeton University, the College of William and Mary and two Department of Energy National Laboratories. Fred is currently the Executive Director Emeritus of the American Institute of Physics, a federation of ten scientific societies representing over 120,000 scientists. He served as the Executive Director from 2007 to 2015 concentrating on improving access to scientific publications and educational outreach to the public. Along the way he has enjoying sharing his love of science and the arts with students, colleagues, family and friends. Fred is a frequent speaker at the Lewes Public Library along with his colleague, Paul Sparrow, who started the library’s Fireside Chat program. He lives in Lewes with his wife Linda, a science writer and co-host of the library’s Science and Society program.

Register

We may never know for sure, but a famous equation—first written on a chalkboard 65 years ago—offers a way to estimate the odds of intelligent life emerging on a planet somewhere in the universe. Seven Rasmussen’s new book, Cloudy with a Chance of Starships, takes an irreverent tour through the cosmos, using a road map known as the Drake equation to guide readers from the basics of astronomy to the frontiers of planetary science and astrobiology. Along the way, Rasmussen covers topics including the big bang, the formation of solar systems, the origins and evolution of life, and the likelihood of intelligent life emerging on a planet and becoming technological.

Seven Rasmussen is an astrobiologist, author, and science communicator whose work has been featured widely in the media, including Popular Science, Wired, Nature, Scientific American, Inside Higher Ed, Science, and Space.com. She is currently a science instructor at the Tacoma Community College and has previously taught  astrophysics at Columbia University and the University of Washington.

We invite you to support the author by purchasing a copy of their book from Browseabout Books. Call-in orders are accepted at (302) 226-2665 or you can stop by the store to purchase a copy. For store hours, please visit their website.

Register

Despite our ever-deepening understanding of the physical universe, we have yet to reach a consensus on the nature of time: does it flow like a river, carrying us along, or does it flow past us? What is the meaning of “now”, the ever-shifting boundary between the future and the past? Did time have a beginning and will it have an end? Can it be stretched and squeezed, or even reversed? Some even believe that time is an illusion – a trick of our senses. According to the most fundamental ideas in physics time might even be an emerging concept from something more fundamental, like quantum entanglement. In a lecture based on his new book, On Time: The Physics the Makes the Universe Tick, Jim Al-Khalili will change forever the way you think about the passage of time and your place within it.

Jim Al-Khalili is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Surrey and one of Britain’s leading science communicators. He has written numerous books that have been translated into twenty-six languages, among them The Joy of Science and The World According to Physics. A fellow of the Royal Society, he is a regular presenter of TV science documentaries and is best-known in the UK for his long-running BBC Radio program, The Life Scientific.

We invite you to support the author by purchasing a copy of their book from Browseabout Books. Call-in orders are accepted at (302) 226-2665 or you can stop by the store to purchase a copy. For store hours, please visit their website.

Register

Birds live all around us, and we love them—whether we keep them as pets, are dedicated birdwatchers, or simply appreciate their beautiful songs and colorful plumage. There are over 10,000 species of birds that share our world, but their legacy goes far back in time, to the age of the dinosaurs. Paleontologist Steve Brusatte—author of the new popular science book The Story of Birds—will recount the remarkable story of birds: a 150 million year journey, which began with the evolution of birds from raptor dinosaur ancestors in the Jurassic Period, through many twists and turns of fate, as these flying marvels endured asteroid impacts and mass extinctions and changing climates, to reach the present day. The story of birds is one of resiliency and adaptability, and Steve will tell that tale—along with his own adventures of collecting fossils and discovering new extinct species—in this engaging talk for families and the general public.

Steve Brusatte is Professor of Paleontology and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. He has named and described over two dozen new species of dinosaurs and other fossils, and published over 200 research papers on the anatomy, genealogy, and evolution of extinct species. He is a keen popularizer of science and his books The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs and The Story of Birds have been New York Times bestsellers, and translated into dozens of languages. He is the paleontology consultant for the Jurassic World film franchise and BBC’s Walking With Dinosaurs.

We invite you to support the author by purchasing a copy of their book from Browseabout Books. Call-in orders are accepted at (302) 226-2665 or you can stop by the store to purchase a copy. For store hours, please visit their website.

Register