“The Golden Dance of Death”
Athanasios (Thanassis) Psaltis
Graduate Student, McMaster University
Gold is the most valued metal: it's beautiful, useful as jewelry and quite rare. Tracing its source goes far beyond a mine: in the vastness of space, pairs of city-sized stars collide in a dance of death creating gold and other precious metals. Each of these cosmic fireworks can create as much as 100 Earths' worth of gold! Two years ago, scientists observed such a collision for the first time. It was so massive and violent that it not only created a release of energy and light, but also ripples in the fabric of space and time. We'll also discuss how gold is created in the universe and how we can use particle accelerators to better understand the reactions happening in space.
Athanasios (Thanassis) Psaltis is a Graduate Student as well as a Research and Teaching Assistant at McMaster University in Hamilton. His area of expertise is Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics, the scientific branch that studies the origin of the elements in the cosmos. In his spare time he Tweets about science, technology, and art. He also participates in several outreach activities and maintains a personal blog of graduate studies adventures.
April 4, 2019 at 8:00 PM
The Royal Canadian Legion Branch 551
79 Hamilton Street North, 2nd floor
Waterdown, Ontario L0R 2H0
