Lectures on Tap - "Probing Dark Energy: The World's Largest Digital Camera"

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "Probing Dark Energy: The World's Largest Digital Camera"

🎤 Speaker: Dr. Paul O'Connor

From prehistory to today, humans have been driven by an unshakable curiosity about the night sky. Now, new instruments amplify our vision a billionfold, revealing a Universe more mysterious than we ever imagined.

Join us as Dr. Paul O’Connor explores how people learned to make pictures of the cosmos, leading up to the groundbreaking Rubin Observatory. Its 3.2-gigapixel camera—the largest digital camera in the world—is beginning a 10-year all-sky survey that will probe Dark Energy, the enigmatic substance that appears to dominate the Universe.

This is not just a story of technology. Dr. O’Connor will share the serendipity, personalities, and surprising twists that shaped this ambitious project and brought us to the edge of profound questions about the foundations of modern physics.

Dr. Paul O’Connor is Emeritus Senior Scientist in the Instrumentation Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory, specializing in advanced systems for astrophysics, particle physics, and medical imaging. A devoted science communicator and educator, he regularly mentors students and engages the public in exploring the wonders of the Universe.

Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌

Agenda

6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.

6:55 PM – Host introduction

7:00 PM – Lecture begins

7:45 PM – Audience Q&A

8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round

8:30 PM – Wrap up.