Five Hopkins professors gathered before an audience of dozens in Gilman Hall on Wednesday night to individually present topics of passion within their respective fields. The event marked the inaugural session of Momentum: Ideas in Motion, a to-be-annual lecture series described by sophomore Leela Chakravarti, its chairwoman, as a forum for "[professors'] most engaging thoughts and ideas."
The event is the brainchild of the Hopkins Undergraduate Research Journal and an offshoot of the Office of the Dean of Student Life. Staff from both styled Momentum in a fashion similar to that of the TED lecture series, an eclectic cabinet of speakers presenting, according to TED's mission statement, "ideas worth spreading."
The professors selected to speak hailed from an array of departments and fields — particle physics, musicology, philosophy, biology, and film — linked by little more than, according to the Momentum manifesto, paralleled ardor in their respective domains.
"[We] started [Momentum] with the hope of encouraging students to pursue their own passions," Chakravarti said in her introductory remarks.
The night commenced with a presentation in particle physics delivered by Bruce Barnett, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. In the three decades since he arrived at Hopkins, Barnett has served as Vice-Chairman and Acting Chairman of the department and amassing accolades like the Maryland Association of Higher Education's Outstanding Faculty Award in 2007.
For his presentation, Barnett outlined the basic principles of dark matter, employing vehement hand gestures, diagrams and remarks that proved straightforward but punchy.
"Dark matter is in this room," he said, gesturing out over the audience. "It doesn't interact with our daily lives. You can't make a mousetrap out of it, but it exists."
Andrew Talle succeeded Barnett's lecture with a presentation of a science not physical, but tonal. Talle, who teaches musicology at Hopkins' Peabody Institute, spoke on the role of improvisation in music education, emphasizing the necessity of the irrational. His presentation proved lighthearted but informative. He cut the laughter that followed his jokes with recordings of a student improvising a Bach piano melody.
Hopkins biologist Michael Edidin followed Talle's presentation. Edidin's role at Hopkins is multifaceted; he serves as an adjunct professor in both the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions' Department of Pathology and the Whiting School of Engineering's Department of Material Science. His topic of discussion on Wednesday evening, however, was narrow and, for many in the audience, initially trivial: human excrement.
"Biologists talk about a lot of gross and disgusting things without realizing they're gross and disgusting," he said, grinning. "I'm guilty of it."
But all was not potty talk. Edidin expounded on the complex relationship between intestinal bacteria and human genetics, promising therein "great potential" for medical and scientific advancement and discovery.
Leaving the stage to wrinkled noses but raucous applause, Edidin preceded Laura Papish, a visiting assistant professor of philosophy whose intellectual pursuits range from Kantian ethical theory to the philosophical merits of sex. For her talk, she doted on a topic particularly relevant to the supposed "cutthroat" culture of Hopkins: the role of luck in accomplishments.
"Respect, money, success. Much of that. . . comes from circumstances beyond our control — that's luck," Papish said, channeling an argument from the school of luck egalitarianism, an idea first pitched by philosopher John Rawls in the 1970s.
"The ability to work hard is itself a gift," she told the audience, most of whom currently live in the throes of midterm examinations.
To cap the evening, Marc Lapadula, a professor of screenwriting in the Writing Seminars, analyzed the role of modern technology in contemporary cinema, at times disparagingly. In a moment of joking self-deprecation, Lapadula called his speech the "lowbrow part of the evening."
To exemplify his points on technology's hindrances, he showed a clip from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which Kier Dullea burns his hand on a futuristic misconception of a microwave oven.
"If you're a writer today, the sort of modern bewilderment of cinema for the screenwriter is how he or she grapples with the technology we have on our hands – all the machines that dominate our lives," Lapadula said, then paused, checking his phone for comedic effect. "We used to write letters, and now we tweet."
Attendees greatly enjoyed the lecture.
"It was wonderful, if only because it was information that I'll never acquire in a classroom setting," freshman Dev Patel said. "And it was a necessary break from studying."
