The Reines Lecture Series honors Frederick Reines, UCI's Founding Dean of Physical Sciences and co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize for discovering the neutrino.
The Reines Lecture Series brings world renowned physicists and astronomers to UC Irvine to give a public lecture and a department colloquium. This celebration honors the rich history of the Department of Physics & Astronomy and brings together faculty, students, supporters, and the community at large.
Frederick Reines
Nobel Prize in Physics 1995
University of California, Irvine
In a so-called beta-decay of a nucleus, a neutron is converted to a proton and at the same time an electron is produced. When studying e.g. the electron velocity, it was clear that the decay violated energy conservation and other decay properties. A proposal was made that in the decay an additional particle, called a neutrino, was created. In the beginning of the 1950s Frederick Reines used a water tank, located close to a nuclear reactor and discovered reactions showing the existence of the neutrino.
Reines Lectures:
2024 Reines Lecture - Andrea Ghez
March 12, 2024
From the Possibility to the Certainty of a Supermassive Black Hole
2023 Reines Lecture - Samuel Ting
February 21, 2023
Exploring the Cosmos
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is a precision particle physics detector on the International Space Station. In more than ten years in space it has collected 215 billion cosmic rays with energy up to trillions of electron volts. Professor Samuel Ting will discuss how the results provide unexpected new information on the cosmos. Watch here.
2022 Reines Lecture - Donna Strickland
Apr 05, 2022
Generating High Intensity, Ultrashort Optical Pulses
2019 Reines Lecture - Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Mar 12, 2019
Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell will relate how pulsars (pulsating radio sources) were accidentally discovered (50 years ago!), discuss some instances where pulsars were 'nearly discovered' and reflect on what lessons can be drawn for today's telescopes and observing programs.
2018 Reines Lecture - Kip Thorne
Mar 06, 2018
The 2018 Reines Lecture was presented by Kip Thorne, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for the detection of gravitational waves. The discovery, part of the LIGO experiment, validated Albert Einstein’s longstanding prediction that during cataclysmic events the fabric of spacetime can be stretched, sending gravitational tremors across the universe.
2017 Reines Lecture – Art McDonald
Mar 01, 2017
The 2017 Reines Lecture was delivered by Nobel Laureate Art McDonald on March 1, 2017. Professor Art McDonald was a co-winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics for discoveries he made as the Director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) scientific collaboration.
2016 Reines Lecture - Steven Chu
Mar 09, 2016
The 2016 Reines Lecture was delivered by Nobel Laureate Steven Chu on March 9, 2016. Dr. Chu is co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light.
2015 Reines Lecture - Frank A. Wilczek
Feb 24, 2015
The inaugural speaker of the Reines Lecture was Dr. Frank A. Wilczek, recipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for work he did as a graduate student at Princeton University when he was only 21 years old.