2022 Burbidge Dinner

The annual dinner for the Auckland Astronomical Society that includes the prizegiving for the New Zealand Astrophotography Competition and the Beaumont Prize for written contributions to the AAS Journal.

This year’s Burbidge Lecturer is Dr Charley Lineweaver.

Astrobiologist, Charles H. Lineweaver is an honorary associate professor at the Australian National University’s Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics and Research School of Earth Science ( www.mso.anu.edu.au/~charley ). His research areas include exoplanetology (the statistical analysis of exoplanets and their habitability), cosmobiology (using our new knowledge of cosmology to constrain life in the Universe) and cancer (a new atavistic model). He recently completed an online video MOOC at: arewealone.us. Dr. Lineweaver earned a BA in history from the State University of New York at Binghamton, an MA in English from Brown University, a BS is physics from Ludwig Maximillian’s University in Munich, and a PhD in physics at the University of California, Berkeley in 1994. He is the son of a high school biology teacher and has lived in or traveled through 85 countries, has spoken 4 languages semi-fluently at one time or another, and was a semi-professional soccer player in New England and Germany.

Burbidge after dinner lecture

What can life on Earth (and in particular in New Zealand) tell us about life elsewhere in the universe?

The ubiquity of planets around other stars has made the question “Are we alone?” more compelling. Earth-like planets seem to be common. If there is life elsewhere, what is it like and how can we find it? To quote Jared Diamond: “New Zealand is as close as we will get to the opportunity to study life on another planet”. The isolated and independent evolution of life on New Zealand plays an important role in our attempts to estimate what biological evolution elsewhere may be capable of. For more detail see arewealone.us (in particular video 7.1.3).

Early-bird prices are available until Friday 07 October 2022:
Members $60 per head (including partners)
Non-Members $70 per head (including partners)

Full price:
Members $65 per head (including partners)
Non-Members $75 per head (including partners)

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