A PAIR Distinguished Lecture was delivered by Nobel Laureate Prof. Reinhard GENZEL, Director and Scientific Member of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, Germany, on 8 February 2023. The webinar attracted over 500 participants from more than 60 countries and regions, including Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Macau, the Netherlands, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. It was also broadcasted live on multiple social media platforms, including Bilibili and Weibo, and viewed by an online audience of over 18,000 people in total.
The webinar was kicked off by Prof. CHEN Qingyan, Director of PolyU Academy for Interdisciplinary Research (PAIR) and Chair Professor of Building Thermal Science in the Department of Building Environment and Energy Engineering at PolyU; followed by a welcome speech by Prof. TENG Jin-Guang, President of PolyU; and a speaker introduction by Prof. Christopher CHAO, Vice President (Research and Innovation) and Chair Professor of Thermal and Environmental Engineering at PolyU.
Prof. Genzel shared his 40-year journey in testing the massive black hole paradigm in the galactic centre. He traced the development of the relevant research by various scientists, from Albert Einstein to Stephen Hawking. He also described the precise, long-term studies in which he and his colleagues used the motions of gas and stars as test particles for space-time, demonstrating the existence of an object with a mass four million times that of the sun.
A question-and-answer session moderated by Prof. Chao and Prof. Chen followed. The audience engaged in a fruitful exchange with Prof. Genzel.
