On November 14, over 300 people packed Northwestern University’s Lutkin Hall to join Professor Stephon Alexander in a celebration of The Jazz of Physics for CIERA’s 15th anniversary public lecture. Over 100 others joined the livestream for an evening that began with a live jazz performance from the Star Eyes Initiative, followed by Prof. Alexander’s public lecture, and concluded with a closing jazz performance by the Star Eyes ensemble and Prof. Alexander on saxophone.
The Star Eyes Initiative, founded by CIERA graduate student and jazz drummer Darsan Swaroop Bellie, conveys new science through new music. On Nov. 14, the Initiative was represented by a five-piece ensemble: Bellie on drums, Christian Dillingham on bass, Elio Wijaya on piano, and Dakarai Barclay and Nickolas Kaplan on trumpets. They performed 3 jazz pieces, two of which Bellie composed himself. “Dance of the Black Holes” evokes the process of two black holes encountering and ultimately colliding, creating the gravitational waves CIERA researchers study. To close, Bellie debuted “One Hot Jupiter, Over Easy Please!”, immersing listeners in the environment of the not-so-distant gas giant.
At the end of the performance, CIERA Director Prof. Vicky Kalogera welcomed guests, celebrated CIERA’s 15th anniversary and introduced Stephon Alexander. Prof. Alexander’s lecture, The Jazz of Physics, explored the interwoven relationship between music and the sciences. 
During his talk, Prof. Alexander chronicled the long history of thinkers – like Pythagoras, Kepler, and Einstein – who studied this relationship. He discussed resonances, overtones, and intervals and mapped these principles onto our understanding of the universe. Throughout the lecture, Prof. Alexander demonstrated musical foundations on his tenor saxophone. At the end of the evening, the Star Eyes Initiative and Prof. Alexander joined forces for a closing performance of classic jazz standards.
On top of serving as a Professor of Physics at Brown University, Stephon Alexander is a jazz saxophonist, a Past President of the National Society of Black Physicists and the CEO and Founder of the non-profit SoundPlusScience Inc. He is a specialist in the field of string theory and cosmology, and in 2001 he co-invented the model of cosmic inflation based on string theory. Additionally, Prof. Alexander combines mathematics and tools from theoretical physics into machine-learning, the geometry and cognition of musical perception, signal processing, and computational algorithms. During his visit to CIERA, Prof. Alexander also gave a scientific colloquium to Northwestern’s STEM community. 40 people attended his talk, “Is the Universe Right-Handed?” in Northwestern’s Technological Institute.
CIERA’s Annual Public Lecture is made possible with support from The Alumnae of Northwestern University. Thank you also to the CIERA graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and staff who organized this event and made it a success. Festivities in honor of CIERA’s 15th anniversary will continue throughout the 2024-2025 academic year.
Watch Stephon Alexander’s talk and past Annual Public Lectures on our YouTube Channel!
