The Arthur C. Clarke Center at UNLV presents its 2006 lecture at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 6, 2006 in the Barrick Museum Auditorium. Presenting will be Professor Michael S. Turner, Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. His lecture, titled "The Dark Side of the Universe: Beyond stars and the starstuff we are made of," is free and open to the public.

About the topic:

The sky is filled with hundreds of billions of galaxies, all lit up by their stars. Stars account for less than one percent of the material in the Universe, and galaxies are held together by a new form of matter - dark matter -- that accounts for 1/3 of the stuff in the Universe. The other 2/3 exists in an even more mysterious form -- dark energy -- and is causing the expansion of the Universe to speed up, rather than slow down.

About the speaker:

Michael S. Turner has just finished a term as Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation for Mathematical and Physical Sciences. He is the Rauner Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. His honors include the Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society, the Warner Prize of the American Astronomical Society, and membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He is one of the pioneers of the interdisciplinary field that has brought together cosmologists and elementary particle physicists to study the earliest moments of creation, and his current research focuses on the mystery of cosmic acceleration, which he believes is the most profound mystery in all of science.

About the Arthur C. Clarke Center at UNLV:

Sir Arthur C. Clarke's visionary legacy gave the world more than 70 published works of fiction and non-fiction, translated into 30 languages, and the concept of geo-stationary communications satellites. Perhaps more familiar to the everyday American, the epic film 2001: A Space Odyssey was a product of his imagination. Now, thanks to a unique partnership, Clarke's legacy has a permanent home on the UNLV campus in the Honors College. The Nevada Board of Regents approved the new Arthur C. Clarke Center at UNLV. The Center is a collaborative effort between UNLV and the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation. Inspired by Clarke's legacy, the Center seeks to honor Clarke's creative contributions to literature, science, and technology by studying, identifying, and nourishing creativity in students at various levels of education throughout the world.