The universe is keeping secrets and noted Harvard University physicist Lisa Randall would like nothing better than to expose some of them during a Lawrence University convocation.
Randall, a rapidly rising “star” in the world of theoretical physics, presents “Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions” Thursday, Jan 26 at 11:10 a.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.
Recently featured in Newsweek’s special edition “Who’s Next” for 2006, Randall, 43, has been hailed for her ground-breaking theories on a new, fifth dimension of infinite extent beyond the four known dimensions of time and space. Many within scientific circles believe the implications of Randall’s research in theoretical high-energy physics, in which she investigates “warped” geometries, holds the promise of a 21st-century breakthrough on the scale of Einstein’s theories of relativity 100 years ago.
Randall’s work on hidden dimensions has attracted widespread attention and has been the subject of stories in the Science Times section of The New York Times as well as in The Los Angeles Times, The Economist and numerous magazines, among them New Scientist, Science and Nature. As a result of two highly regarded research papers — “A Large Mass Hierarchy From a Small Extra Dimension” and “An Alternative to Compactification” — Randall is considered the world’s “most cited” theoretical physicist in the last five years with nearly 10,000 citations.
A New York City high school classmate of acclaimed physicist Brian Greene, one of the world’s foremost proponents of string theory, Randall holds the unique distinction of being the first female physicist to earn tenure at Princeton University and the first female theoretical physicist granted tenure first at MIT and later at Harvard, where she has taught since 2001.
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Last September, Randall’s work was brought to the attention of the general public with the publication of her book, “Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions,” in which she presented an accessible account on the possibility of additional unseen dimensions. The New York Times included “Warped Passages” on its 2005 list of the 100 most notable books of the year.
A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the American Physical Society, Randall earned both a bachelor’s and a doctorate degree at Harvard. She spent two years (1987-89) as a President’s Fellow at the University of California and one year as a postdoctoral fellow at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory before joining the faculty at MIT in 1991.
