CMU School of Drama


Wednesday, March 07, 2012

ULS


Thursday, March 8, 2012
4:30 pm • McConomy Auditorium, first floor, University Center
Dickson Prize in Science
Honoring Professor Marvin L. Cohen,University of California, Berkeley
Einstein, Condensed Matter Physics,Nanoscience & Superconductivity
Award Ceremony andLecture

Professor Cohenwill describe a few observations about Einstein and his research in condensedmatter physics. Einstein had difficulty getting his thesis subject approveddespite some excellent proposals, which Cohen will discuss. As is well known,Einstein was at the forefront in many fields, but Professor Cohen will focus oncondensed matter and quantum physics. In particular, he'll discuss thebackground of this area of physics and some recent work in photovoltaics,nanoscience and superconductivity. In the latter field, Einstein suggested thatwe might never have a theoretical explanation, but Einstein was not alwaysright.

Thursday, March 22, 2012
4:30 pm • Porter Hall 100
The Humanities Center Lectures, 2011-2012:Imagining Planetarity
The Beneficiary: Cosmopolitanism andInequality
Bruce Robbins, Columbia University

"Under the capitalist system, in order that England may live incomparative comfort, ahundred million Indians must live on the verge ofstarvation– an evil state of affairs, but you acquiesce in it every time youstep into a taxi or eat a plate of strawberries and cream. The alternative isto throw the Empire overboard and reduce England to a cold and unimportant littleisland where we should all have to work very hard and live mainly on herringsand potatoes. That is the very last thing that any left-winger wants.” GeorgeOrwell wrote this in 1936. What do we think of it now?

Monday, March 26, 2012
4:30 pm • Porter Hall 100 (Gregg Hall)
From Transylvania to Pennsylvia: My Personal Journey
Edith Balas, Professor of Art History, Carnegie MellonUniversity; Research Associate at the University of Pittsburgh
Edith Balas, a native of Cluj, Transylvania, professor of Art Historyfor the last 34 years, is the only eyewitness survivor of Nazi concentrationcamps currently at CMU. She will be sharing her experience there and glimpsesof her life under the Communist regime in Romania. She will then speak of someof her art historical research which benefitted from her East-Europeanbackground.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012
4:30 pm • Breed Hall, MargaretMorrison Carnegie Hall 103
A Regulator’s Perspective on NuclearPower in a Post – Fukushima World
Commissioner William D. Magwood IV (S 1982, HS 1983), Commissioner,U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The talk willreview the current status ofoperating and newly licensed reactors in the U.S.and discuss the pertinentissues before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Mr. Magwood has adistinguished career in the nuclear field and in public service. He was thelongest-serving head of theUnited States' civilian nuclear technology program,serving two Presidents and five Secretaries of Energy from 1998 until 2005.

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