RCA BLK are pleased to announce Adinkras-2-Adynkras an in person conversation with World renowned Physicist Sylvester James Gates Jr
How mathematics empowered the discovery of a class of artistic images, and how art empowered a solution discovery to an unsolved,decades old problem containing over 4.2 billion yes-or-no mathematical puzzles,related to quantum gravity.
The use of graphical images as calculational aides in quantum physics receivedan enormous boost in the late 1940's when Richard Feynman introduced a visualimagery technique that now bears his name and which has empowered themost precise calculations in quantum physics. In 2004 two physicists, MichealFaux and the speaker introduced a 'new visual technology' that has now solvedthe puzzle of a long standing 'Witten Problem."
Time: 2pm
Location: RCA Rausing Research & Innovation Building
15 Parkgate Road London SW11 4NL
Booking is essential please click here to book tickets
Timing: Doors to the theatre will open at 1.45pm and the talk will begin at 2.00pm.
Accessibility: The talk will be held on the 7th floor of the RCA Rausing Research & Innovation Building with step free access and a lift
If you require support with access please email rca-blk@rca.ac.uk
We would like to Thank David Quartery and The Blacklett Lab family for their support.
Bio:
Sylvester James “Jim” Gates, Jr., holds the Clark Leadership Chair in Science and serves as a Professor of Physics in the Physics Department as well as a Professor of Public Policy in the School of Public Policy, at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
In 1973 he earned B.S. degrees (mathematics & physics), and in 1977 a Ph.D. in physics, all from M.I.T. These led to a series of ‘firsts’ for a theoretical physicist of the African diaspora including his: 1977 becoming Harvard Society of Fellows-Jr. Fellow, and 1980 appointed in Caltech’s Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy. In 2013 was his naming the first such person elected to the National Academy of Sciences in its one hundred fifty-year history and bestowed with the U.S. National Medal of Science. In 1984, he co-authored Super-space, the first comprehensive book on supersymmetry, following his doctoral thesis, M.I.T.’s first on the subject.
As an assistant professor at M.I.T. that year, his research uncovered a new subfield in mathematics, “torsionful complex manifolds.” In 2011, his efforts led to the astonishing discovery that the fundamental laws of physics may include classical error-correcting codes (as in information theory and computer science).
The year of 2024 marks the fifty-second consecutive year of his university-level teaching at Caltech, Howard University, Gustavus Adophus College, M.I.T., Brown University, and the University of Maryland. This included fourteen consecutive years teaching in Project Interphase at M.I.T. His teaching awards include the American Association of Physics Teacher’s Klopsteg Award, Howard University’s 21st Century Initiative Award, and the Washington Academy’s College Science Teacher of the Year among others. During 1991–1993, he chaired the Howard University Department of Physics and Astronomy. Also, in 2013, Professor Gates was awarded the Mendel Medal by Villanova University. During 2014, was named the Harvard Foundation’s ‘‘Scientist of the Year’’ and in August 2021, was honored with the Andrew Gemant Award, given by the American Institute of Physics. He is the recipient of ten honorary PhD degrees. In the U.S. these include Georgetown University (2001), Morgan State University (2010), the University of Pennsylvania (2016) and Harvard University (2024), and around the world (the University of Western Australia (2010)/ Memorial University of Newfoundland/ University of Johannesburg (2021)/ University of the Witwatersrand (2023)). He served on the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee on Physics, the Department of Energy’s High Energy Physics Advisory Panel, the LIGO Operations and Scientific Research Sub-Panel and NSF Review Committee, and the LIGO Director’s Physics Advisory Committee. He was the inaugural Director of the Brown Univ. Theor. Phys. Center 2018-2022.
He is a past president of the National Society of Black Physicists, and is a NSBP Fellow, as well as a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Prof. Gates served on the Presidential line of the American Physical Society (APS) from 2019-2022, Professor Gates served earlier as a General Councilor of the APS (1997–2001) and he was the first recipient of the APS Bouchet Award in 1994. He was on the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), the National Commission on Forensic Science, and on the Maryland State Board of Education in the period of 2009–2016.
He is a member of the Am. Assoc. Adv. of Sci. Am. Acad. of Arts & Sci. As well he is an elected Fellow of the South African Institute of Physics (SAIP), having advised that country’s government on science policy and educational issues. He has also done similar work in South Korea.
He is also a recipient of the AAAS’s Public Understanding of Science & Technology Award and is an alumnus of the Defense Science Study Group associated with the Institute for Defense Analysis. His 2015 essay “Thoughts on Creativity, Diversity and Innovation in Science & Education” was cited in the Supreme Court decision known as “Fisher v. Texas.” Other books he has authored or co- authored include L'arte fisica: Stringhe, superstringhe, teoria unificata dei campi-2006_in Italian only, Superstring Theory: The DNA of Reality-2006, Reality in the Shadows (or) What the Heck's the Higgs?-2017, Proving Einstein Right-2019. In 2006, he completed a DVD series titled Superstring Theory: The DNA of Reality for The Teaching Company. Having contributed to dozens of science documentary videos (starting with Breakthrough: The Changing Face of Science in America –1995), Professor Gates continues to broadly appear in documentaries. Since 2015 these include “The Big Bang Machine,” “The Great Math Mystery,” “The Mystery of Matter,” “Inside Einstein’s Mind,” “Thru the Wormhole: Do We Live in The Matrix?”, “Secrets of Einstein’s Brain,” “Inside CERN,” and “Hawking, Can You Hear Me?” In recent times, he was called by BBC America to comment on gravitational radiation, and the career of Stephen Hawking. In 2024, he appeared in a documentary film entitled, “Bending Light,” based in part on his book (P.E.R. -2019).
He is married to M.I.T. Alumna Dianna Abney, ’84, and they have twin children: Delilah is an astrophysicist/cosmologist working on radiation around spinning black holes, and Sylvester, III is a biologist working at the neuron-inorganic materials boundary.