<p>Dr. Mario Livio is an internationally known astrophysicist, a best-selling author, and a popular speaker.</p><p>He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, who worked for 24 years with the Hubble Space Telescope. Livio has published more than 400 scientific papers on topics ranging from Dark Energy and cosmology to black holes and extrasolar planets. </p><p>Dr. Livio is also the author of six popular science books, including The Golden Ratio (an International Bestseller for which he received the "Peano Prize" and the "International Pythagoras Prize") and Is God A Mathematician? (which was the basis for the 2016 Emmy-nominated TV NOVA program The Great Math Mystery). Livio's book<i> Brilliant Blunders </i>was a national bestseller in the U.S., and was selected by the Washington Post as one of the "Best Books of the Year.” His latest book, <i>Why? What Makes Us Curious</i>, appeared in the U.S. in July, 2017, and has been nominated for the Grawemeyer Award in Psychology. His latest publication,<i> Galileo and the Science Deniers</i>, is set to be released in May of 2020.</p>
Renowned Astrophysicist, Lecturer, and Best-selling Author of "Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein"
<ul><li><strong>Our Place In the Cosmos</strong></li><li>Prof. Mario Livio reviews the status of the physical existence of humans and life on Earth in the grand scheme of the universe, in view of the latest findings in astronomy, cosmology, and high energy physics. He discusses our physical significance in relation to dark matter, dark energy, and the properties of the numerous discoveries about extrasolar planets. He also brings in philosophical considerations concerning the role and importance of human intelligence in deciphering the secrets of the cosmos.</li><li><strong>IS GOD A MATHEMATICIAN?</strong></li><li>We use mathematics to describe the universe and phenomena within it. What is it that gives mathematics such powers? Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner called it “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics.”Prof. Livio also discusses a question with which mathematicians and philosophers have struggled for centuries: “Is mathematics a discovery, or an invention of the human mind?” Along this fascinating journey through the history of mathematics, he will describe the incredible insights of such giants as Plato, Galileo, Descartes, Riemann, and Gödel.</li><li><strong>SYMMETRY: FROM HUMAN PERCEPTION TO THE LAWS OF NATURE</strong></li><li>What do Bach's compositions, Rubik's Cube, the way we choose our mates, and the physics of subatomic particles have in common? All are governed by principles of symmetry, which elegantly unify scientific and artistic principles. Yet the mathematical language of symmetry — known as "group theory”— did not emerge from the study of symmetry at all, but from an equation that couldn't be solved. For thousands of years mathematicians solved progressively more difficult algebraic equations, until they encountered the quintic equation, which resisted solution for three centuries. Working independently, two great prodigies ultimately proved that the quintic cannot be solved by a simple formula. These geniuses, a Norwegian named Niels Henrik Abel and a romantic Frenchman named Évariste Galois, both died tragically young. Their incredible labor, however, produced the origins of the language of all symmetries. </li></ul>