Predicting the Technologies of Our Future

Star Trek is a story of exploration that has fascinated us for the last 50 years.

A crucial part of this story are unbelievable scientific and technological advances — warp drive, wormholes beaming technology, holodecks — that make the exploration of the universe possible.

But are these advances really beyond our reach, or have we already surpassed some of them? Are they scientifically possible, simply waiting around the next corner to be discovered? If you want to hear the answers to these questions, join us for a presentation on the (crazy?) scientific ideas behind Star Trek technologies, and the physical laws that we have to “bend” to make them work.

Dirk K. Morr is a professor of physics at the University of Illinois at Chicago and an associate of the James Franck Institute at the University of Chicago. His research in the area of theoretical condensed matter physics focuses on the evolution of complexity from the nano- to the macroscale. From 2003 to 2010, Dr. Morr was a member of the task force that developed the new Science Storms exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Dr. Morr is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and held the Leibniz chair at the University of Leipzig (Germany) in 2011/12. His public engagements include popular science talks, in which he does not only discuss the “mysteries of the quantum world”, but also examines the relation between art and physics.

Free for C2ST Members & UIC Students, Staff & Faculty

5:00pm Social hour / 6:00pm Program