Stars: Life, Death and the Origin of Elements
Renowned Italian physicist Matteo Cantiello gave a thrilling First Thursday Breakfast Club presentation entitled “Stars: Life, death and the origin of elements” before an audience of Anacapa students, faculty and guests. His talk was aimed at breaking down the cosmic scale of the universe and relating it to our own existence and life on Earth.
During his talk, gasps could be heard from the audience as stunning visuals of our cosmic neighbors swirled on the screen behind him. Both students and parents were amazed by the paradoxically simultaneous importance and unimportance of our own existence in our universe and perhaps our universe’s place in a yet undiscovered multi-dimensional multiverse. In less than one hour, Dr. Cantiello touched on subjects ranging from the physics of galaxies and nuclear fusion to the intersections between science and philosophy. After his main presentation, Dr. Cantiello entertained rapid-fire questions from a small, eager group in the Rochin Adobe.
Matteo Cantiello was born and raised in Tuscany. He attended the Liceo Scientifico Leonardo da Vinci and Liceo Scientifico Enrico Fermi for high school. He obtained a bachelor degree in physics and a master degree in astrophysics from the University of Pisa. His master’s thesis was on the Dynamics of Interstellar Medium. For his PhD, he studied in Holland at Utrecht University. His PhD dissertation was titled Observational Consequences of Unstable Stellar Interiors, which can be found at http://bit.ly/wLJ3S5. He was part of an international team of scientists that recently discovered the fastest-rotating massive star ever recorded. In September 2011, he moved to Santa Barbara, where he works as an associate specialist at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (UCSB).