The Harvard Gazette

Peter Galison

Page 1 of 1

Rings around a black hole.

In a photo of a black hole, a possible key to mysteries

So little is known about them and the image hints at a path to a higher-resolution image and more and better data

Science|

DateApril 17, 2020April 22, 2020

Harvard square as seen from above

Places we love

People from the Harvard community share their favorite spots on campus

Campus|

DateMay 22, 2019May 22, 2019

Tightrope walker over a canyon

Doctoral work embraces new media

Program encourages students to think beyond the traditional written thesis

Arts|

DateApril 30, 2019May 1, 2019

Harvard Senior Research Fellow Shep Doeleman

A black hole, revealed

Researchers unveil an image for the ages

Science|

DateApril 10, 2019April 26, 2019

Harvard sophomore Ashley LaLonde portrays poet Phillis Wheatley in the film "No More, America," directed by Peter Galison and Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Depths of slavery, heard, seen, and felt

Scholars’ film on 18th-century Harvard debate gains power from poetry of Phillis Wheatley

Arts|

DateOctober 30, 2017November 13, 2017

"Containment," co-directed by Harvard's Robb Moss (left) and Peter Galison, focuses on two nuclear containment facilities in Florida and New Mexico.

In 10,000 years, we’ll know how it ends

Harvard documentarians explore deep complexity of nuclear waste disposal

Arts|

DateDecember 2, 2015July 8, 2019

An American soldier on helicopter patrol over South Vietnam from the film “Hearts and Minds” (1974).

Vietnam, the ongoing memory

Though the war ended almost 40 years ago, it feels curiously current, and still draws scholars and interested students alike

World|

DateDecember 19, 2014July 8, 2019

An enthusiastic crowd jammed the Science Center hallway around the downsized Mark I — about half of the original is on display — during a ceremony launching the new, refurbished exhibit.

Down to the details, a giant in computing history

Harvard Mark I exhibit gets an upgrade

Science|

DateApril 7, 2014April 15, 2019

Three filmmakers with Harvard ties have been nominated for Academy Awards for best documentary feature film. The young directors honed their skills as undergraduates in Harvard's Department of Visual and Environmental Studies. Above are three scenes from Joshua Oppenheimer's "The Act of Killing."

Film as a force

Three Oscar nominees for best documentaries learned their craft in Harvard program

Arts|

DateFebruary 27, 2014July 9, 2019

The annual meeting of the History of Science Society in Boston featured speakers such as Harvard's Joseph Pellegrino University Professor Peter Galison, who delivered a lecture on “nuclear wastelands” in the United States, the enormous tracts set aside for toxic dumps related to nuclear power and bomb-making.

Probing how the past behaved

Jam-packed conference focuses on vast array of topics surrounding history of science

Science|

DateNovember 26, 2013July 26, 2019

“The airport itself is this nice nucleus that can act as a container of broader ideas,” said Sonja Duempelmann (photo 1), who helped organize “Airport Landscape: Urban Ecologies in the Aerial Age” at Gund Hall this week. An exhibit of the same name is also on view through Dec. 19. Its color scheme, signage, and scale are all echoes of modern airports. It is the first time, organizers said, that every display space in Gund Hall has been given over to a single theme (photos 2 and 3.

Change is on the runway

Once airfields, then mini-cities, airports are now turning to landscape design to solve problems

Arts|

DateNovember 13, 2013

Graduate students at the A.R.T. created a theatrical exploration of Galileo's discovery of sunspots (photo 1). The event was organized by Peter Galison, Pellegrino University Professor (photo 2), and included a production of “The Greatest Witness" (photo 3) and a musical performance.

Galileo’s reach

Conference to mark 400th anniversary of insights on sunspots has breadth to match its subject

Science|

DateOctober 7, 2013May 20, 2019

James Burns (from left), Kara Oehler, and Jesse Shapins have created an engine of change: Its name is Zeega. Launching today, it will provide an intuitive way for Internet users to harness the Web’s riches of text, imaging, and audio for multimedia stories.

Alpha, beta, Zeega

A new multimedia platform to deepen, improve storytelling

Science|

DateMarch 6, 2013September 11, 2019

Harvard technician Robert L. Hawkins working on the Mark I multiply-divide unit during its installation in the Cruft Laboratory at Harvard University, Feb. 1, 1944.

Alan Turing at 100

Exhibit celebrates pivotal pioneer of computer, artificial intelligence

Science|

DateSeptember 13, 2012June 4, 2019

“ 'Harvard's Great Teachers' is a video series that showcases our faculty sharing their ideas, talking about what they do in the classroom, very much in the liberal arts tradition,” said FAS Dean Michael D. Smith. Among the faculty members who will appear in the initial set of videos is Thomas F. Kelly, the Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music, (pictured).

A peek into Harvard classrooms

Video series highlights University’s exceptional teachers

Campus|

DateMarch 28, 2012July 19, 2019

Great Teachers trailer

Campus|

DateJanuary 20, 2012February 13, 2018

Sara Schechner, the David P. Wheatland Curator of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, explains how Harvard played a vital role in standardizing time in the 1800s.

America’s first time zone

Observatory timepiece created standard for nation’s first time zone

Science|

DateNovember 10, 2011September 12, 2019

At the exhibit “Cold War in the Classroom,” you can flip through the Life magazine issue of March 31, 1958, and get a glimpse of pre-Sputnik fear: an article about the “underdog profession” of high school science teaching, in peril during a race to domination against the Soviets.

Cold War fever

Exhibit uses maps, texts, video to show how fear entered classrooms

Arts|

DateSeptember 30, 2011July 26, 2019

Harvard College Dean Evelynn Hammonds (from left) opened the discussion "Teaching with Collections" by reporting that more than 100 members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences make Harvard’s collections a centerpiece of courses in areas as disparate as visual and environmental studies, expository writing, the history of science, and stem cell research. Other speakers included Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Peter Galison, Jeffrey Hamburger, and Farish Jenkins (not pictured).

Objects of instruction

Faculty members discuss use of Harvard’s collections in teaching and learning

Arts|

DateApril 6, 2011July 25, 2019

Viewers watch presentations from the class “Media Archaeology of Place.” The students' task was to “excavate” learning in a new way, by searching for “the media archaeology” of Boston. They used old and new media that revealed regional portraits not seen before.

Scholarship beyond words

New media is becoming a touchstone in some dissertations

Arts|

DateFebruary 3, 2011July 26, 2019

Peter L. Galison, Pellegrino University Professor in History and Science and Physics at Harvard University, is a 2009-10 Radcliffe Fellow. He is using part of his Radcliffe year to explore the intersections of forbidden wilderness and nuclear wasteland.

Wasteland and wilderness

Galison uses a Radcliffe year to ponder ‘zones of exclusion’

Science|

DateOctober 8, 2009

Two University Professors appointed

Laurel Ulrich and Peter Galison recognized as 'individuals of distinction'

News|

DateFebruary 2, 2006January 8, 2018