Physics professor to discuss 'Cosmic Horizons' in Batavia

Fermilab Lecture Series continues with “Our Expanding Cosmic Horizons” with University of Chicago professor Rocky Kolb at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 20, in Ramsey Auditorium at Wilson Hall, off Pine Street in Batavia.

Tickets are $7. Online ticketing is now available. Visit www.fnal.gov to purchase tickets or call the box office at (630) 840-ARTS (2787).

New scientific tools will expand our cosmic horizons and enable us to discover life on planets orbiting other stars, allow us to see the first galaxies, and reveal the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

Edward W. Kolb (known to most as Rocky) is the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the College and Chair of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, as well as a member of the Enrico Fermi Institute and Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics.

In 1983, he was the founding head of the Theoretical Astrophysics Group and in 2004, the founding director of the Particle Astrophysics Center at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia. Kolb is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He was the recipient of the 2003 Oersted Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers for notable contributions to the teaching of physics, the 1993 Quantrell Prize for teaching excellence at the University of Chicago, and the 2009 Excellence in Teaching Award from the Graham School of the University of Chicago. His book for the general public, “Blind Watchers of the Sky: The People and Ideas That Shaped Our View of the Universe,” received the 1996 Eugene M. Emme Astronautical Literature Award of the American Astronautical Society.

The field of his research is the application of elementary-particle physics to the very early universe. In addition to over 200 scientific papers, he is a co-author of “The Early Universe,” the standard textbook on particle physics and cosmology. Kolb's research was recognized by the 2010 Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics, awarded by the American Astronomical Society and the American Institute for Physics.

He has traveled the world, if not yet the universe, giving scientific and public lectures. Rocky has been a Harlow Shapley Visiting Lecturer with the American Astronomical Society since 1984.

In recent years, he has been selected by the American Physical Society and the International Conference on High-Energy Physics to present public lectures in conjunction with international physics meetings. Rocky presented a special public lecture in Salonika Greece as part of the cultural celebration of that city, and he was selected to address the president of Pakistan as part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the country.

He has appeared in several television productions, most recently interviewing Stephen Hawking for the Discovery Channel. He can also be seen in the IMAX film “The Cosmic Voyage.”