KCETA at the Museum of Natural History

On October 17 and 31 at 6:30 p.m., the KIT Center for Elementary Particle and Astroparticle Physics (KCETA) invited the interested public to a first series of lectures at the Natural History Museum Karlsruhe. The overall event, consisting of a total of three lecture series, is entitled Our Universe.

On the first evening, three lectures lasting around 20 minutes dealt with the following topics:

• In search of the origin of mass at CERN's Large Hadron Collider.
• The importance of tritium for nuclear fusion, and the determination of the mass of the electron neutrino, supposedly the lightest elementary particle known to us with a non-vanishing mass.
• What does a measurement actually mean in modern science and how is knowledge gained in modern science?

The second evening was devoted to the fascinating topic of dark matter and initially examined the subject from the perspective of a theoretical physicist (Prof. Felix Kahlhöfer). Experimental physicists Prof. Kathrin Valerius and Prof. Torben Ferber then reported on the intensive search for dark matter in xenon experiments and accelerator experiments respectively.

All of these topics are directly related to the daily work of KCETA staff and students. The well-mixed audience showed great interest and everyone involved enjoyed a stimulating evening. The lecture series will continue at the same location on November 28 with the topic: Cosmic radiation.