April 6 - Signal to Noise

We have a special joint event with the Wallach Art Gallery on May 6th. The event, titled “Signal to Noise”, is an interdisciplinary salon that discuss and exhibit the significance and nuisance of sounds and noise in our daily lives.

Andrea Derdzinski, a fourth-year NSF graduate fellow, gives her lecture on gravitational waves. She first introduces the electromagnetic spectra and explains how astronomers use them to study various celestials objects in the universe. Then she focuses on the recently discovered gravitational-wave events, including the first finding of the 30-solar-mass black hole mergers and the recently discovered neutron-star merger.

After Andrea’s lecture, Ariana van Gelder, who is a Ph.D. candidate at CUNY and an experimental musician, make her performance by improvising experimental rhythm as inspired by the random sounds in the lecture hall. Then, Ariana together with her artistic fellows, Emmy Cathedral, Constance DeJong, Ray Ferreira, Dominika Ksel, and Sarada Rauch, exhibit a light and sound salon in the library and stairwell on the 14th floor of Pupin. The salon features how signals (i.e., light and sound) intervene and enhance our daily experiences with the nature and society.


-- Yong Zheng (graduate student)