September-October Highlights

	Brian Odom, Research Associate in the Enrico Fermi Institute

Enrico Fermi Institute Events
Arthur Holly Compton Lecture — “Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe: Looking for Clues in Surprising Places.”
11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 23
Kersten Physics Teaching Center, Room 106
5720 S. Ellis Ave. 702-7823

The 64th series of these public lectures will begin Saturday, Sept. 23, and will be held each Saturday through Nov. 11. The eight free lectures at the University will give individuals who are interested in new scientific discoveries a look into the surprising places experimental physicists often explore to attain a more complete understanding of the laws of nature. Delivering the lectures will be Brian Odom, Research Associate in the Enrico Fermi Institute and also a Fellow in the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University. Odom will discuss topics including how physicists go deep underground to look for yet undiscovered particles believed to compose the bulk of the universe’s mass; how they study atoms caught in laboratory traps in hopes of understanding the origins of matter in the big bang; and how they probe gravity at tiny distances in order to shed light on nature’s strange behavior on the huge length scales of the universe.

	The eastern chapel of Weni’s mastaba.

Oriental Institute
“Lost Tombs” and the Archaeology of Individuals in Old Kingdom Egypt.
7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 27
Breasted Hall, Oriental Institute Museum
1155 E. 58th St. 702-9507
http://www-oi.uchicago.edu.

One of the most important provincial landscapes of the period, the vast Old Kingdom cemetery at Abydos, Egypt, was also the source of the long biography of a 6th dynasty official named Weni, whose tomb was originally found in 1860. Weni went on to become one of ancient Egypts best known individuals, but the location of his tomb was lost until its rediscovery in 1999 by a team from the University of Michigan. Janet Richards, associate professor at the University of Michigan, will discuss what new data has revealed since then and how tombs become “lost” in the first place.

	Kerry James Marshall, Study for Slow Dance (left) and Slow Dance (right).

Smart Museum of Art
Drawing as Process in Contemporary Art.
Oct. 5 through Jan 14, 2007
5550 S. Greenwood Ave.
702-0200. http://smartmuseum.uchicago.edu

Since at least the days of the Renaissance, artists have made drawings in preparation for works in other media. Drawing can now stand alone as an artistic medium, but those traditional preparatory functions remain important to many contemporary artists. This exhibition evaluates the use of drawing in generating, honing, and circulating ideas for traditional painting and sculpture as well as installation and performance art. The various hand-made drawings, computer-generated pictures, and sketchbooks exemplify both images made as part of the artists’ private working processes and drawings intended for public and institutional consumption.

	Mathematical Thoughts by Audrius Plioplys.

Rockefeller Memorial Chapel Events
Neurotheology: Exhibit of the Work of Audrius Plioplys.
Through Friday, Oct. 27
1156 E. 59th St. 702-7059.

In his series of works “Neurotheology” and “Thoughts from Under a Rock”, Audrius Plioplys combines his previous photographic works with the drawings of the early 20th century neuroanatomist Santiago Ramon y Cajal. These “neuronal arborizations” reveal underlying artistic memories, artistic process and creative thoughts. A graduate of the College and the Pritzker School of Medicine, Dr. Plioplys is himself a child neurologist and research neuroscientist as well as an artist. For more information, call 702-7059. Artist talk and reception Tuesday Oct. 3 from 5 - 7 p.m.