The last Bisan Lecture webinar before the summer holidays will take place on Wednesday, May 10th at 7pm Palestine time (7 pm Israel, 6 pm CET, 5 pm UK, 12 noon US Eastern). We will have the pleasure to welcome Prof. Ivar Ekeland (University Paris-Dauphine) who will speak (in English with simultaneous Arabic translation for those who wish) Climate change: transition, bifurcation or catastrophe? You can register for the webinar by clicking here!
Dear Colleagues,
MIT Professor and Dean of the School of Science Nergis Mavalvala, delivered the fourth Bisan Lecture Series of 2023 providing the audience with an enchanting perspective on the future of the era of gravitational waves astronomy. An era that only started in 2015 with the first ever direct detection of a gravitational wave by LIGO, and which was followed by many other detections after. In the lecture, Prof. Mavalvala first discussed the incredible complexity that had to be overcome by LIGO – two factors of a trillion! – to be able to perform the measurement of these ripples of spacetime. Then, she delved into what this and subsequent discoveries taught us, from new insights into mergers of large black holes, to improving our understanding of the structure of neutron stars, to the comprehension of the origin of abundance of gold on planet Earth! She then concluded by updating us on future experiments which will allow us to finally see phenomena thus far inaccessible by old-school electromagnetic waves astronomy.
The video recording and the lecture slides will soon be available here.
We are pleased to announce that the last Bisan Lecture webinar before the summer holidays will take place on Wednesday, May 10th at 7pm Palestine time (7 pm Israel, 6 pm CET, 5 pm UK, 12 noon US Eastern). We will have the pleasure to welcome Prof. Ivar Ekeland (University Paris-Dauphine) who will speak (in English with simultaneous Arabic translation for those who wish) on
Title: Climate change: transition, bifurcation or catastrophe?
You can register for the webinar by clicking here!
Abstract: Planet Earth is a complex system, where various worlds (physical, biological, human) and various scales (in time and space) interact. It has been in equilibrium for the past 10,000 years, but in the last 100 years, developed and developing countries have conducted a real-life experiment by injecting in the atmosphere increasing quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. How does a complex system respond to such a continuous change in internal conditions ? It is an old problem, which has been investigated by famous mathematicians, from Leonard Euler (1707-1783) to René Thom (1923-2002). In this talk, I will survey the various possibilities and apply them to climate change
Biographical Sketch: Ivar Ekeland
Ivar Ekeland has taught mathematics, economics and finance at the University of Paris-Dauphine and the University of British Columbia. His present research interests are directed to the prevention and mitigation of climate change. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Academia Europea, and a foreign member of the Academies of Science of Norway, Palestine and Austria. He was the President of the University of Paris-Dauphine from 1989 to 1994. He is the Chair and founder of the French organization of academics for the respect of international law in Palestine (AURDIP). He is the author of several mathematical research books and popular books, including a comic strip “Climate emergency: there is still time!” (Urgence climatique: il est encore temps!) published in 2021 with Etienne Lécroart.
You can register for the webinar by clicking here!
This lecture is sponsored by the Bisan Center for Research and Development and Scientists for Palestine.
Hoping to see many of you at this webinar, we send you our best regards.
The Bisan Lecture Series Steering Committee
Next BLS webinar
Wednesday September 27, 2023, 7 pm Palestine time
Prof. Timothy Brennan (University of Minnesota)
Wednesday October 11, 2023, 7 pm Palestine time
Prof. Rashid Khalidi (Columbia University)
Wednesday November 8, 2023, 7 pm Palestine time
Prof. David Mumford (Brown and Harvard Universities)
Wednesday December 13, 2023, 7 pm Palestine time
Annemarie Jacir (Filmmaker)
Wednesday January 10, 2024, 7 pm Palestine time
Prof. John Hardy (University College London)
To receive BLS announcements, you can subscribe to the mailing list here.
BLS Statement of purpose
In concert with Scientists for Palestine and the Bisan Center for Research and Development, and in keeping with their joint commitment to full integration of Palestine in the global community of learning, the Bisan Lecture Series sponsors discourses on subjects of cultural, scientific, and societal importance by leading research experts and public intellectuals of varied heritage and viewpoint. The interactive webinars are free and open to the public, and recordings of each will be posted soon afterward.