On Monday evening, Hitoshi Murayama of the University of California at Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, presented a public lecture, “Seeing the Invisibles.” Referencing the Disney cartoon, The Incredibles, Murayama’s lecture appealed to all age-levels – six-month-olds included. “There is a lot more in the universe than meets the eye,” Murayama said. “Seeing the invisibles is the challenge to 21^st century physics.”  From kinetic energy to dark matter, Murayama provided an overview of particle physics and concluded by describing the International Linear Collider. “About 700 of us came to Snowmass to talk about this International Linear Collider,” he said. “When the scientists first had this idea, I thought it was totally crazy. They talked about sending a beam over about ten miles, making it so focused that it much less than a thousandth of a strand of hair and then making the beams meet in the middle. My friends told me that this is something you can do and control it to a level of accuracy to a few nanometers. Once we do, we hope to learn a lot more about the nature of the dark field.”

Hitoshi's talk (pdf 10MB)

About the photos: Hitoshi Murayama (left) addressing a crowd of 150 people on Monday evening. He entertained all age-levels, including the daughter of Cornell physicist Ritchie Patterson. Nora Gibbons (right) smiled and clapped throughout the lecture. "Nora definitely seemed edified after Hitoshi's talk!" said Patterson.