T
he Michelson Lecture Series, sponsored by the United States Naval
Academy Class of 1969, commemorates the achievements of Albert
A. Michelson, Naval Academy graduate Class of 1873 and instructor,
and the first American scientist to receive a Nobel Prize. Each year since 1981, a
distinguished scientist has come to the Naval Academy to present the Michelson
Lecture. This year the Michelson Lecture is hosted by the Physics Department. The
Class of 1969 is proud to sponsor this lecture by Professor and Nobel Laureate,
Dr. Adam Riess, of Johns Hopkins University.
United States Naval Academy
34th Annual Michelson Memorial Lecture
Michelson Memorial Lecturers
1981 Professor Herbert C. Brown, Nobel Laureate, Purdue University
1982 Professor Charles H. Townes, Nobel Laureate, Univ. of California, Berkeley
1983 Professor Arthur L. Schawlow, Nobel Laureate, Stanford University
1984 Honorable James M. Beggs, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
1985 Admiral Grace Hopper, United States Navy
1986 Dr. Ronald L. Graham, Bell Laboratories
1987 Dr. James A. Watson, Nobel Laureate, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
1988 Dr. Stirling A. Colgate, Los Alamos Laboratory
1989 Dr. Robert Ballard, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
1990 Dr. Richard Hamming, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA
1991 Dr. John H. Conway, Princeton University
1992 Dr. Michael F. Shlesinger, Director of Physics, ONR
1993 Dr. Richard E. Smalley, Nobel Laureate, Rice University
1994 Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan, NOAA, Chief Scientist and Astronaut
1995 Dr. Arnold Penzias, Nobel Laureate, Bell Laboratories
1996 Dr. Aaron Hauptman, Nobel Laureate, Hauptman-Woodward Research Foundation
1997 Dr. Dudley R. Herschbach, Nobel Laureate, Harvard University
1998 Dr. Leon N. Cooper, Nobel Laureate, Brown University
1999 Dr. Sylvia Earl, Deep Ocean Explorer, 1998-2002 National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, and Chairman, DOER Marine Operations, Inc.
2000 Dr. Vinton G. Cerf, Senior Vice President of Internet Technology, WorldCom
2001 Dr. David Donoho, Stanford University
2002 Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland, Nobel Laureate, University of California, Irvine
2003 Dr. William D. Phillips, Nobel Laureate, NIST & University of Maryland
2004 Dr. Howard Bluestein, University of Oklahoma
2005 Dr. Jeffrey Weeks, Freelance Mathematician
2006 Dr. James J. Heckman, Nobel Laureate, University of Chicago
2007 Sir Harold W. Kroto, Nobel Laureate, Florida State University
2008 Dr. James Gates, University of Maryland
2009 Dr. Christos Papadimitriou, Univ. of California, Berkeley
2010 Dr. Eric J. Barron, The Florida State University
2011 Dr. Bernd Sturmfels, University of California, Berkeley
2012 Dr. Peter Diamond, Nobel Laureate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2013Dr. Ada Yonath, Nobel Laureate, Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel
“Supernovae Reveal An Accelerating Universe”
Dr. Adam Riess
Thomas J. Barber Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Johns Hopkins University
Mahan Hall
October 22, 2014
7:15 p.m.
The Lecture is Sponsored by the USNA Class of 1969
Program
Dr. Adam Riess
Thomas J. Barber Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
Johns Hopkins University
Prelude
U. S. Naval Academy Woodwind Quintet
A
dam Riess is the Thomas J.
Barber Professor of Physics and
Astronomy, Krieger-Eisenhower
Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the
Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Johns
Hopkins University, and a distinguished
astronomer at the Space Telescope Science
Institute. He is also a member of the
National Academy of Sciences.
He received his bachelor’s degree in
physics from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology in 1992 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1996.
His research involves measurements of the cosmological framework with
supernovae (exploding stars) and Cepheids (pulsating stars). Currently,
he leads the SHOES Team in efforts to improve the measurement of the
Hubble Constant and the Higher-z Team to find and measure the most
distant type la supernovae known to probe the origin of cosmic acceleration.
In 2011, he was named a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics and
was awarded the Albert Einstein Medal for his leadership in the High-z
Supernova Search Team’s discovery that the expansion rate of the universe is
accelerating, a phenomenon widely attributed to a mysterious, unexplained
“dark energy” filling the universe. The discovery was named by Science
magazine in 1998 as “the Breakthrough Discovery of the Year.”
His accomplishments have been recognized with a number of other
awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
“Fellowship Grant” in 2008, the Gruber Foundation Cosmology Prize in
2007 (shared), and the Shaw Prize in Astronomy in 2006.
History of the Michelson Memorial Lecture
Andrew Phillips, Ph.D.
Academic Dean and Provost
Introduction of the Guest Speaker
Captain John O’Neill, USN
Director, Mathematics and Science Division
Michelson Memorial Lecture
Adam Riess, Ph.D.
“Supernovae Reveal An Accelerating Universe”
Question and Answer Session
Dr. Riess
Presentation to the Speaker
Midshipman 1/C Eric Swanson, USN
and
Major Stephen W. Comiskey, USMCR (Ret.)
President, USNA Class of 1969
Abstract: In 1929 Edwin Hubble discovered that our Universe is
expanding. Eighty years later, the Space Telescope that bears his name is being
used to study an even more surprising phenomenon: that the expansion is
speeding up. The origin of this effect is not known, but is broadly attributed
to a type of “dark energy” first posited to exist by Albert Einstein and now
dominating the mass-energy budget of the Universe. Professor Riess will describe
how his team discovered the acceleration of the Universe and why understanding
the nature of dark energy presents one of the greatest remaining challenges in
astrophysics and cosmology.