The Biggest Nothing in the Universe!

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 at 11:30 AM by Dave

On Monday, March 31, at 7:00 pm, in room 116 in the Wick Science Building, the biggest nothing in the universe comes to St. Cloud State University. Professor Lawrence Rudnick from the University of Minnesota co-discovered the largest area in the universe where nothing appears to be found. He will speak about nothing and his discovery that evening.

The biggest nothing in the Universe — 1 billion light years across — made worldwide news last fall and was voted #16 in Discovery Magazine’s list of the top 100 for 2007. What is this big nothing? How was it found? Is it still there or has it disappeared with further study? Why should we care? All this and more about nothing will be discussed in a talk by Professor Lawrence Rudnick.

Professor Rudnick has been involved with a wide variety of professional development activities for faculty members and graduate students at the University and public education and outreach activities in the community. He worked with the Minneapolis Public Schools on science education projects, and was recently co-PI of a 5 year NSF Local Systemic Initiative Grant for training of K-8 teachers in using hands-on science. For more than a decade he was a consultant and a frequent on-screen guest expert with the public television show “Newton’s Apple”. He is a founding member of the Minnesota Planetarium Society, which is currently seeking funding to match the state grant for a new planetarium and space discovery center.

Lawrence Rudnick is an internationally known research scientist, distinguished teacher and longstanding contributor to public education and the professional development of K-12 science educators. His research work, supported by both the National Science Foundation and NASA, focuses on the interactions of relativistic plasmas with the thermal gas in supernova remnants, radio galaxies, and clusters of galaxies, through radio, X-ray, optical and infrared observations.

Posted in Astronomy News

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