SAN FRANCISCO, CA- Grammy Award winning Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart and 2006 Nobel Laureate George Smoot will screen their multi-sensory film, Rhythms of the Universe, for the first time on September 29th at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC.  The film features sonifications of the Universe going all the way back to the big bang paired with images from NASA and naration by Hart and Smoot.  A discussion will follow by Hart, Smoot, and Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian Institution’s Under Secretary for Art, History, and Culture to explore their passion for music, physics, and their search for resonances in the universe.

Best known for his nearly three decades as the percussionist of the Grateful Dead, Mickey Hart has won two Grammy's for Planet Drum (1991-Best World Music Album) and Global Drum Project (2007-Best Contemporary World Music Album).  In 2012, Hart collaborated with Smoot on his record Mysterium Tremendum which featured sonifications of the Big Bang.  In the past two years, Hart has sonified the Universe, the Golden Gate Bridge, the America's Cup, and most recently the rhythms of the body.  On his new record Superorganism, Hart has broken new ground by using his brain as a musical instrument.

Professor George Smoot was co-awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics "for discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation.” Smoot received Bachelor degrees (1966) in Mathematics and Physics and a Ph.D. (1970) in Physics from MIT.  Smoot has been at the University of California Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 1970.  Professor Smoot is an author of more than 200 science papers and is also coauthor (with Keay Davidson) of the popularized scientific book Wrinkles in Time.

The Explore the Universe gallery will be open following the program.  Stargazing in the Phoebe Waterman Haas Public Observatory will follow the program, weather permitting.

This program is made possible by a generous contribution from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation.

When: Sunday, September 29, 2013 8:00 pm

Where:  Lockheed Martin Imax Theater
National Air & Space Museum

Independence Ave at 6th Street, SW 
Washington, DC 20560

Tickets: http://airandspace.si.edu/events/detail.cfm?id=7867