‘Three Cosmic Tenors’ represent at St. Louis Science Center
By Laura Flavin For The St. Louis American
How did the universe come to be?
That is the very big question that the Three Cosmic Tenors – African-American physicists Dr. Larry Gladney, Dr. Herman White and Dr. James Gates – will pose at the St. Louis Science Center on Friday, Jan. 15.
The Three Cosmic Tenors are known for their love of opera, but what makes them truly unique is that they also happen to be distinguished physicists who will share their combined professional insights on the origins of the universe.
Attendees should expect exciting and accessible presentations about string theory, particle physics and astrophysics and about how these areas of study help us better understand how the universe came to be.
All that – presented by three black men, one of them from East Boogie.
The event falls on what would have been Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 81st birthday, which will be officially celebrated on Monday, Jan. 18, 2010. This is a free program that will teach audience members both young and old cutting-edge physics and inspire them to look at the world around them with new eyes.
About the Three Cosmic Tenors:
Research physicist and professor Larry Donnie Gladney was raised by his mother in East St. Louis, and attended Alta Sita Elementary School, Clarke Junior High School and graduated third in his class from East St. Louis High School in 1975. Gladney earned his B.A. in physics from Northwestern University in 1979 and his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University in 1985.
Gladney is a celebrated physicist who has received honors throughout his career, including the Lilly Teaching Fellowship in 1990, the coveted Edward A Bouchet Award from the American Physical Society and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Lecturer Award from Wayne State University.
He is also the recipient of the Outstanding Community Service Award from the Black Graduate Professional Students’ Association at the University of Pennsylvania for his interest in the success of young people.
Herman Brenner White Jr. is a distinguished physicist who was born and raised in Tuskegee, Alabama and graduated from Tuskegee Institute High School in 1966. He attended Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana and earned his B.A. in physics.
He then completed his graduate education in nuclear and accelerator physics at Michigan State University and high energy and particle physics at Yale University and Florida State University, earning his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics.
For the past 33 years, White has been a member of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory scientific staff, and has collaborated on many high-energy particle physics experiments as well as the design of high-energy particle beam and detector systems.
White has received numerous awards such as an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation travel fellowship to CERN, Geneva Switzerland in 1972, a university fellowship in physics at Yale University 1976-1978, and his selection as the third Illinois Industrial Research Corridor Fellow for North Central College in 1994.
White is a senior scientist at the highest energy particle accelerator in the world, where atoms, the basic units of matter, are smashed to reveal information about our world and its makeup.
Sylvester James Gates earned his B.S. in mathematics and physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973, and his Ph.D., with emphasis on elementary particle physics and quantum field theory, from MIT in 1977.
At the time of his graduation in 1977, Gates was at the forefront of the young fields of supersymmetry and supergravity and was able to make significant contributions to these controversial theories, including the first ever doctoral dissertation to address supersymmetry.
After earning his degrees at MIT, Gates accepted a fellowship at Harvard and later accepted a position at the California Institute of Technology. In the early 1990s Gates served as the first director of the Center for the Study of Terrestrial and Extra-terrestrial Atmospheres and headed the physics department at Howard University.
In 1994 he received the first American Physical Society’s Edward A Bouchet Award, which honors and recognizes the work of minority physicists and their contributions to physics research. He is currently employed as a John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland.
The event will be moderated by Dr. Darnell Diggs, and Nicole Adewale is host committee chair.
“How Did The Universe Come to Be?” with the Three Cosmic Tenors will be presented 5:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 15 at the St. Louis Science Center, 5050 Oakland Ave. Call 314-289-4400 or visit www.slsc.org.