The preview to the 49th Nobel Conference will feature a lecture by Professor S. James Gates at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 20 in Alumni Hall. Not only will Gates give his talk, “Symmetry and the Quincunx Nexus,” at Gustavus Adolphus College, but he will highlight the Nobel Conference in talks given at the Science Museum of Minnesota, Minnesota Public Radio, and St. Peter High School.

Gates is a string and particle theorist and who will speak at the Nobel Conference Preview as part of his role as the Fall 2013 Gustavus Rydell Professor. Established in 1993 and funded by the contribution of Dr. Robert Rydell ‘46 and Dr. Susan Rydell, the professorship is intended to enhance and contribute to the Gustavus student learning experience. Gates was also honored as a Gustavus Rydell Professor in 2007 after speaking at the 2005 Nobel Conference.

Professor in Physics and Director of the Nobel Conference Chuck Niederriter worked with Gates during his previous Rydell professorship and thinks that students will enjoy his lectures because of his easy-going personality.

“He’s an excellent, world renowned physicist, but he enjoys working with students and talking with students,” Niederriter said.

Niederriter stated that the goal of the Nobel Conference Preview is to excite and interest the community around the Nobel Conference topic.

“[We want to] give them a taste of what it might be about and get the community psyched about it,” Niederriter said.

This year the topic is “The Universe at its Limits,” and the conference has been designed around the intentional exploration of concepts that deal with the universe on both the macro and micro scale. Originally, the planning committee wanted to use the conference to highlight the verified discovery of the Higgs Boson particle in 2012, and the research that has been conducted since the finding. The topic, however, was too narrow, so it was expanded to encompass a broader array of relevant topics to the study of the universe as well as how, we humans, grapple with discovery and development.

Gates will also be giving the last lecture at the Nobel Conference and will likely endeavor to pull together the many concepts presented at the conference. Held at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 2, his speech is entitled, “The Audience of Nature,” and will focus on humans’ relationship to nature.

Publicizing the Nobel Conference goes beyond preview talks, however, and engages a wider community that includes those who are not able to be present at the conference itself. One of the most utilized forms of community outreach is the online streaming of conference presentations provided by Technology Services.

Associate Director of Core Services in Gustavus Technology Services Dan Oachs ‘97 will be one of the people working behind the scenes ensuring that online streaming this year goes off without a hitch. Last year there were some difficulties uploading the first lecture of the day, which also tends to be the most streamed presentation. Oachs believes that these shouldn’t be problems this year.

“Last year we had an issue with the 720p HD stream and had to disable it.  Hopefully this year we will not have any issue with that and can allow users with fast internet connections the ability to watch it at 720p,” Oachs said.

Online streaming is a popular way to experience the Nobel Conference; last year at the height of streaming there were “about 470 concurrent viewers with a total of 2308 unique client IP addresses,” Oachs said.

These statistics from Nobel Conference 48, “Oceans,” were down from the year prior with the topic, “The Brain and Being Human,” which boasted a total of 3754 unique IP addresses. Oachs conjectured that these numerical disparities may have a correlation to the popularity of that year’s conference topic. Despite the dip in viewership, however, streaming is still in high-demand as video statistics show that many people watch the presentations right after they have been posted to the YouTube channel, and Technology Services has received email requests for uploading if the videos are not up within a few hours of the original presentation.