Exploring Our Place in the Universe
A Voyage with Aram Friedman
A Voyage with Aram Friedman
April 4, 2014, 11:30 – 4:15 P.M.
Campus Center Ballroom B
Download the flyer (PDF, 735KB)
Our most powerful observatories can detect objects out to 13 billion light years. But theory suggests we should see more. Why don’t we? What will it take to peer into the darkness? What will we find? With the aid of the Micro Dome real-time simulator, Aram Friedman will lead a voyage from Earth to the "edge" of the observable universe — a voyage that will begin at the Technology and Society Forum session on February 12.
Friedman spent 30 years as a broadcast and post-production engineer in New York City, designing and maintaining facilities for ABC, NBC and CBS. He has also built custom electronics and software for movie special effects in New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
In 1998, Friedman was asked to design and supervise new construction at New York City’s Hayden Planetarium. Two years and $6 million later, visitors to the planetarium were taken on a real-time journey to the edge of the observable universe. Today, using a portable simulator of his own design, Friedman explores the universe with students throughout New Jersey right in their classrooms. Friedman also teaches for Northrop Grumman, prime contractor for the James Web Space Telescope, the space-based observatory that will replace the aging Hubble.
On June 5, 2012, as part of a Williams College expedition, Friedman recorded the last transit of Venus in this century. The visible-light time-lapse recording is now part of the permanent record of the American Astronomical Society, National Geographic Society and the BBC.