Simons Foundation: A Comedic Dive into Dark Matter

Simons Foundation
160 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10010

The funny thing about dark matter is that it makes up nearly 85 percent of the matter in our universe, but we have never seen it. This leads us to wonder how something so abundant can remain so elusive.

An unexpected contender exploring the subject is comedian Matthew Starr, who spent the last six months touring his solo stand-up show, appropriately called “Dark Matter.” The show pulled crowds in by comedically drawing parallels between the mysterious nature of dark matter and the more familiar, yet still perplexing, complexities of the human condition.

Mariangela Lisanti, a theoretical particle physicist at the Simons Foundation’s Flatiron Institute and Princeton University, uses numerical simulations to predict how different theories of dark matter would manifest in observations of material in and around galaxies.

Join us for a taste of Starr’s “Dark Matter” stand-up show, followed by a conversation with Lisanti about her work using the invisible to see and better understand what’s right in front of us (just a few million light-years away).

Doors open: 5:30 p.m. (No entrance before 5:30 p.m.)

In Conversation: 6:00 – 7:00 p.m. (Admittance closes at 6:20 p.m.)

Reception: 7:00 – 8:00 p.m. Registration is required!