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Fri, Oct 21, 2005

October 21-23, 2005

LIED CENTER, SAT 7PM, SUN 2PM
Gregory Popovich's Comedy Pet Theatre Arrives At The Lied

The product of Russian circus performers, Gregory Popovich's latest achievement in showmanship can be seen in his troupe of remarkably gifted cats, dogs, doves, and white mice, which Popovich often rescues from animal shelters. Drawing upon the natural abilities of each animal, Popovich has trained his stars to jump, dance, fly through the air, and perform other feats that boggle the mind and delight the soul.

In addition to performances on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, this show is part of LiedFamFest, which includes a free party before the show featuring food, entertainment, and hands-on activities. More information, including ticket prices, can be found on the Lied Center web site.

LIED CENTER

327 KEIM HALL, FRI 3PM
Agronomy and Horticulture Seminar - Current Efforts in Domestication - "Domestication of Native Hazelnuts"
Scott Josiah, Nebraska Forest Service, UNL

112 HAMILTON HALL, FRI 3:30PM
Chemistry Colloquium - "Monolithic Columns for Chromatography: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,"
Professor Frantisek Svec, University of California at Berkeley

117 BESSEY HALL, FRI 3:30PM
Geosciences Stout Lecture - "Unveiling the History of the Sun Using Cosmogenic Radionuclides Measured in Tree Rings and Ice Cores"
Raimund Muscheler, University of Colorado

NEBRASKA UNION, FRI 3:30PM
Hurricane Katrina Panel Discussion - Panel discussion on the Hurricane Katrina aftermath
Representatives include three UNL professors and a New Orleans resident

KIMBALL RECITAL HALL, FRI 4PM
American Mathematical Society Einstein Public Lecture - "The Nature of Space"
Sir Michael Atiyah

SHELDON MEMORIAL ART GALLERY, SUN 2PM
"Let's Talk Art" Lecture Series - "Building a Collection: The Rohman Gallery"
Norman Geske, Sheldon Director Emeritus

KIMBALL RECITAL HALL, FRI 4PM
World-Renowned Mathematician Atiyah to Give Public Lecture

Sir Michael Atiyah

Sir Michael Atiyah of the University of Edinburgh will give a public lecture on "The Nature of Space" at 4 pm Oct. 21 at the Kimball Recital Hall, 11th and R streets (extended) on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. The talk is free and intended for the general public. A reception at the Van Brunt Visitors Center, 313 N. 13th St., will follow the talk.

Philosophers, mathematicians and physicists have struggled for centuries to understand the nature of space. In a lecture celebrating the 100th year since the publication of Albert Einstein's first relativity paper, Atiyah will review this history in light of Einstein's theories and of modern exotic scenarios where, for example, particles are replaced by vibrating strings in 10-dimensional space-time.

Einstein's concepts -- of the speed of light, a curving four-dimensional framework for space-time, the equivalence of mass and energy -- still form the foundation of scientific understanding. Researchers, however, have a wealth of new information about the universe and a complex assortment of new theoretical tools for its description.

Atiyah is one of the most prominent mathematicians of the 20th and 21st centuries. He has won many awards, the most recent being the Abel Prize in 2004 (jointly with I.M. Singer) for the discovery and proof of the Index Theorem, which connects geometry and analysis in a surprising way, and for a leading role in building new bridges between mathematics and theoretical physics. The Abel Prize is the mathematical equivalent of a Nobel Prize and includes a monetary award of nearly $1 million.

Atiyah's talk is part of the American Mathematical Society's fall Central Section meeting Oct. 21-23 at UNL. Approximately 500 mathematicians will gather for the meeting, including more than 350 speakers from 41 states and 19 countries. Eight faculty in the UNL Department of Mathematics will give talks, including Luchezar Avramov, Jonathan Cutler, Steven R. Dunbar, Cynthia Farthing, Mikil Foss, Glenn Ledder, John Lindsay Orr and Judy Walker. For information on the meeting times and topics, see the UNL Department of Mathematics web site or go to the American Mathematical Society web site.

UNL DEPT. OF MATHEMATICS

MARY RIEPMA ROSS MEDIA ARTS CENTER
Continuing This Weekend At The Ross: Junebug, The Incredibly Strange Animation of Bill Plympton

UNL's Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center presents Junebug, the first feature film from director Phil Morrison, as well as the Incredibly Strange Animation of Bill Plympton.

Giving an art-film aesthetic to a touching family drama, director Phil Morrison and screenwriter Angus MacLachlan present their first feature, which was shot in their hometown of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The film is set in nearby Pfafftown and Pilot Mountain, and location is itself a character in the film as long sequences of soundless photography show rows of houses, or rooms in a house, or stretches of farmland--capturing the essence of this area of the South. Successful, cosmopolitan, and adorable Chicago couple Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) and George (Alessandro Nivola) meet at a fancy art auction where she is working as a dealer, and they are married six months later. Madeleine is recruiting an outsider artist, and she travels to rural North Carolina to meet him. George accompanies her, as he is originally from Pfafftown, and though it has been three years since he visited home, Madeleine insists on meeting his family. When she does, she finds herself in a world totally different from her own, and sees a new side of her husband. His mother Peg (Celia Weston) and father Eugene (Scott Wilson) are quiet homebodies who aren't sure what to make of Madeleine's sophisticated career and lilting British accent. George's deadbeat brother Johnny (Ben McKenzie) never finished high school, and lives at home with his young wife Ashley (Amy Adams), who is naive and bubbly--and very pregnant. While the family's simplicity, traditional values, and religion make them suspicious of Madeleine, Ashley is the one bright-eyed spirit who is happy to have Madeleine as a sister-in-law and celebrates her marriage to George. Junebug is an affecting film that sheds light both on the always-surprising nature of in-laws, and the unique culture of the South.

Featuring animator Bill Plympton in person presenting a collection of his favorite short films on Thursday, October 20 & Friday, October 21 at 7:30 pm each evening. An Oscar-nominated animator and cartoonist, Bill Plympton has been amusing and provoking audiences with his surrealist, off-kilter take on everyday life for years. A pioneer of independent animation, Bill Plympton founded a career on the success of his unmistakable, herky-jerky shorts, the style and subversion of which inspired the MTV generation of animators and cartoonists, including Matt Groening and Mike Judge. Under the shadow of The Simpsons and Beavis & Butthead's franchise-level successes, Plympton has amassed his own extensive body of work unaided by the springboard of corporate sponsorship. With dozens of shorts, four feature animations, and three live-action films under his belt, the 59-year-old Plympton shows no signs of slowing down.

More information is available at the Ross website.

MRRMAC | JUNEBUG | PLYMPTOONS