<b>Victor F. Weisskopf Distinguished University Professorship Lecture</b><br>The Bottom of the Iceberg – How Well Do/Can We Understand the Underlying Laws of the Physical Universe?<br><b>Speaker: Physicist Gordon Kane</b>

Speaker: Physicist Gordon Kane

Professor Kane will argue that recent progress in string theory, plus existing and forthcoming data (particularly from the European CERN Large Hadron Collider), allows us to make significant progress on understanding ultimate questions about the physical universe. The data will include reports of (ongoing) observations of a Higgs boson from CERN and a description of the string theory prediction of the Higgs boson properties. Approaching issues about understanding the physical universe as a ladder of “effective theories” helps clarify them.