Nobel Laureates (Audio)

In a public talk in front of the Great Pyramid of Kukulcan at Chichen Itza, Berkeley Lab's Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist George Smoot discusses the remarkable precision that ancient Mayan astronomers achieved solely with the naked eye and comments on the significance of the approaching end of the current World Age of the 5,000-year-long Mayan Long-Count Calendar, due to conclude on the 2012 winter solstice. No, the end of the world is not at hand, Smoot says, but it's true that we're undergoing a fantastic transition in cosmology. The Mayan view of the universe was based on the sun and moon, a handful of planets, and a couple of thousand stars. Ours is an evolving cosmos reaching back over 13 billion years, based on a cornucopia of data accumulating almost daily and including hundreds of billions of galaxies. Series: "Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory " [Science] [Show ID: 23616]

Sir Harold Kroto is an English chemist and the 1996 Nobel Prize recipient in Chemistry. He currently serves as Francis Eppes Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State University. He researches the high-resolution electronic spectra of free radicals produced by flash photolysis (the breaking of chemical bonds by light), as well as carbon dioxide and the molecules that contain chains of carbon atoms with numerous multiple bonds. Kroto's Nobel Prize was based on his co-discovery of buckminsterfullerene, a form of pure carbon better known as "buckyballs." He is presently researching nanoscience and nanotechnology. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Science] [Show ID: 23326]

Shirin Ebadi received the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for promoting human rights, in particular, the rights of women, children, and political prisoners in Iran. She was the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and only the fifth Muslim to receive a Nobel Prize in any field. Ebadi was also one of the first female judges in Iran. She served as president of the city court of Tehran from 1975 to 1979, but was dismissed from her position after the Islamic Revolution in February 1979. After obtaining her lawyer’s license in 1992, Ebadi entered private practice. She has taken on many controversial cases defending political dissidents and, as a result, has been arrested numerous times. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 23039]

A champion of women’s empowerment around the world, Leymah Gbowee is an African peace activist often credited with aiding the cessation of the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003 through her extraordinary women-led peace movement. Currently the Executive Director of the Women Peace and Security Network Africa, Gbowee’s work was the subject of the 2008 award-winning documentary Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which has been used as a tool to mobilize African women to petition for peace and security. In October 2007, the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government honored Ms. Gbowee with the Blue Ribbon Peace Award for her significant contribution to peace-building. Two days after this talk was recorded, Gbowee became the co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. Series: "Voices" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 23061]

His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama returned to UC Irvine to engage students and the community about compassion and global leadership. Series: "Great Minds Gather Here" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 22640]

Host Harry Kreisler welcomes Nobel Laureate Michael Spence for a discussion of his new book, “The Next Convergence.” Spence discusses his intellectual odyssey focusing on his Nobel Prize research on information and market structure then explains how his work as Chairman of the Commission on Growth and Development led him to write his new book. Tracing the impact of the internet, globalization, and domestic and international policy on the trajectory of economic growth in the emerging economies, he highlights the implications of the resulting high speed economic growth for the global economy and global governance. Series: "Conversations with History" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 21951]

Nobel Laureates Robert Engle, Roger Tsien, Mario Molina and Harry Markowitz present synopses of their award-winning work and engage in a lively discussion on what it takes to move forward on promising ideas. This event is part of the Innovation Day Expo and Symposia (IDEaS) held in honor of UC San Diego’s 50th anniversary. Series: "IDEaS" [Public Affairs] [Science] [Show ID: 20830]

Nobel Laureate and Harvard Economist Amartya Sen opens the New Frontiers in Global Justice Conference at UC San Diego with an inspiring talk on achieving local and global justice. Series: "Helen Edison Lecture Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 19623]

IDEaS - Nobel Laureate Roger Y. Tsien Series: "IDEaS" [Show ID: 21670]

How best to create laws and institutions to create a prosperous and just society? Noted behavioral economist Richard Thaler considers the public policy implications of behavioral economics, which assumes that that both the regulated and the regulators are fallible. Thaler draws on recent events such as the financial crisis and the oil spill as he explores ways to rethink regulation. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Public Affairs] [Business] [Show ID: 20381]