Dr. Mathur Reflection

This evenings speaker was Dr. Mathur and he spoke to us about Stephen Hawking, black holes, and physics. He began his discussion about what the basic definition of a black hole is. A black hole is a a star that collapses in on itself. He then continued describing the basic physics of space. I learned about neutron stars and how they are very large and spin around extremely fast. I thought this was really interesting to think about something so large spinning around thousands of times per second. It makes me think about how many things in space are almost unfathomable to comprehend, which is always fascinating to think about. He then continued discussing several physics and chemistry principles leading into Stephen Hawking’s work in showing that black holes can actually happen. I also enjoyed how he talked about stars size and relation to how hot they are. I learned from him that stars can only be so big; he gave the example how a star cannot be 1000x as big as the sun. He also mentioned that if you see a star in the sky that is blue it not only means it it very hot but it also means that it is very large. It is always interesting to learn things about stars and be able to look up into the sky at night and see something you’ve never noticed before. His explanation of the equation for two objects with mass at some distance from each other was at first confusing but then fascinating when he told us that it was discovered that particles can be made “for free” without cost of energy. This concluded his discussion of basic physics. He then continued the lecture on black holes now with everything he discussed applied. He then discussed Stephen Hawking’s discoveries he made in relation with this. I enjoyed how he taught us basically everything we would need to know to understand these discoveries he made. I learned a lot of new things I didn’t know before, for example the information loss paradox.

Overall, I feel that Dr. Mathur made physics interesting and engaging. I also enjoyed how he used the chalkboard instead of a powerpoint presentation. I feel this was more interactive and classic lecture style. I also can tell Dr. Mathur is an extremely knowledge and passionate about the subjects he discussed which also made the talk more interesting.