Southeast Michigan Mensa

Can we find evidence of alien technology? That is the ambitious goal of the Galileo Project, directed by our guest speaker Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb. The project is far from the first attempt to detect signs of civilizations beyond Earth. You may be aware of the “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence”, or “SETI”, a project that has been operational for 40 years. However, there are striking differences between SETI and Project Galileo. According to Dr. Loeb: “Traditional SETI focused on the search for electromagnetic signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, without success. This method is similar to waiting for a phone call at home when nobody intends to call. Alternatively, the Galileo Project searches for physical objects near Earth that were manufactured technologically by distant civilizations. 

Join us at 7 pm (EST) on Saturday, December 14, when we will hear from Dr. Avi Loeb about why he and his collaborators think they have a chance of finding something where others have failed, and why he believes that an alien artifact passed through our solar system in 2017. 

Dr. Avi Loeb received a PhD in plasma physics at age 24 from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1986 and was subsequently a long-term member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1988-1993), where he started to work in theoretical astrophysics. In 1993, he moved to Harvard University where he was tenured three years later. He is now Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation, and former Astronomy department chair (2011-2020). Dr. Loeb is also the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial” and “Interstellar”.

Please note that this program will be presented only via Zoom.

The Zoom room opens at 6:30 pm (EST) for mingling. The program starts at 7:00 pm (EST).  

There is no charge for the Zoom presentation, but, due to rising costs, (Meetup charges alone are up 70% this year!) your donation via PayPal is greatly appreciated. Please donate $5! To donate go to paypal.com, login, and click on the “Send” button. Enter the e-mail address: treasurer@nullmensadetroit.com , click on “Next”, fill in your payment amount, and in the “What’s this for” dialogue box enter: “SEMM Zoom Presentations.” Click “Next”, select your payment method, and click “send”.Please remember that all attendees need to pre-register by clicking on the following link: https://tinyurl.com/SEMM-2024-Gathering.

Program 7:00pm (EDT), Saturday, October 19, 2024: 

The search for alien life outside our Solar System has centered on searching for radio signals or laser signals from exoplanets orbiting distant stars. This search is supported by the discovery of thousands of exoplanets, with the reasonable expectation that there are billions of them in our galaxy. However, after several decades of listening for such signals, none have been found. 

None. 

In our own solar system, the hope is now that we may find microbial life on places like Mars or Jupiter’s moon Europa, or at least evidence that such life once existed there. 

The newest technique for searching for alien life is to examine exoplanet atmospheres for biogases such as oxygen that would at least be indicative of primitive life. This field of study is in its infancy. 

Finally, there are claims that intelligent aliens are already here on Earth, and that possibility will also be discussed.

Join us at 7:00 P.M., on Saturday, October 19, when Dr Dale Partin will lead us in our search for life elsewhere in the universe. Dr. Partin has been a member of the Warren Astronomical Society since 1998, and has been an officer for many of those years. He  currently serves as WAS’s First Vice President. He has a B.S. and M.S. in physics and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering. His work has been published in over 80 scientific journals, he has 38 patents, is a fellow of the American Physical Society, a member of Sigma Xi and of the American Scientific Affiliation. He had a career in industrial research, and now teaches astronomy at Macomb Community College.

Please note that this program will be presented live and on Zoom. You can attend the live presentation, for a chance to also mingle with your fellow Mensans and guests, at our usual location:

Northwest Unitarian Universalist Church in Southfield
23925 Northwestern Highway
Southfield, MI 48075

Doors open at 6:30pm (EDT). The program begins at 7:00pm. 

Ticket prices for the in-person program are:

Adult members: $5m or buy a strip of 4 tickets for $15. Adult guests: $6, Children 12 & under: $2
Members receive free admission in the month of their birthday.

Following the presentation, please join us for dinner at Buddy’s Pizza, located at 31646 Northwestern Highway, in Farmington Hills, just northeast of Middlebelt Road.

If you can’t join us in person, the Zoom room opens at 6:30pm (EDT) for mingling. 

There is no charge for the Zoom presentation, but, due to rising costs, (Meetup charges alone are up 70% this year!) your donation via PayPal is greatly appreciated. Please donate $5! To donate go to paypal.com , log in, and click on the “Send” button. Enter the e-mail address: treasurer@nullmensadetroit.com , click on “Next”, fill-in your payment amount, and in the “What’s this for” dialogue box enter: “SEMM Zoom Presentations.” Click “next”, select your payment method, and click “send”.

Please remember that all attendees need to pre-register by clicking on the following link: https://tinyurl.com/SEMM-2024-Gathering.

Why are so many artifact repatriations and restitutions from museums around the world making the headlines? Is it always a museum’s ethical obligation to return looted, stolen, or illicit items? This presentation will discuss the policies and standards established by museums for the acquisition and disposition of Holocaust-related art, and Egyptian, Pre-Columbian, Italian, and Greek antiquities, as well as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Join us at 7pm, on Saturday, September 21, to hear Barbara Heller, the current Director and Conservator of Special Projects and former Chief Conservator at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). In addition to her other duties, Ms. Heller is a member of the DIA’s Cultural Stewardship Taskforce. She lectures, publishes, and serves on the board of directors and in advisory positions for several professional regional, national, and international organizations.

Please note that this program will be presented live and on Zoom. You can attend the live presentation, for a chance to also mingle with your fellow Mensans and guests, at our usual location:

Northwest Unitarian Universalist Church in Southfield
23925 Northwestern Highway
Southfield, Michigan

Doors open at 6:30pm (EDT). The program begins at 7:00pm. 

Ticket prices for the in-person program are:

Adult members: $5, or buy a strip of 4 tickets for $15. Adult guests: $6, Children 12 & under: $2. Members receive free admission in the month of their birthday.

Following the presentation, please join us for dinner at Buddy’s Pizza, located at 31646 Northwestern Highway, in Farmington Hills, just northeast of Middlebelt Road.

If you can’t join us in person, the Zoom room opens at 6:30pm (EDT) for mingling. The program starts at 7:00pm (Eastern). 

There is no charge for the Zoom presentation, but, due to rising costs, your donation via PayPal is greatly appreciated. Please donate $5! To donate, go to paypal.com and click on the “Send Money” tab. Enter the e-mail address: treasurer@nullmensadetroit.com and your payment amount. Be sure to include a notation that your donation is for “SEMM Zoom Presentations.” Please remember that all attendees need to pre-register by clicking on the following link: https://tinyurl.com/SEMM-2024-Gathering

During World War II, the Germans used the Enigma, a cipher machine, to develop seemingly unbreakable codes for sending secret messages. The Enigma’s settings offered 150,000,000,000,000,000,000 (That’s One hundred fifty quadrillion!) possible solutions, and although no one believed it could be done, England’s Alan Turing and his team at Bletchley Park successfully broke it. Some historians believe that the cracking of Enigma was the single most important victory by the Allied powers during WWII, resulting in saving over 2 million lives and shortening World War II by two years. But how did Touring and company solve the unsolvable?!

Join us at 7pm, on Saturday, August 17, when Oakland University’s Frank Cardina, will take back to wartime Bletchley Park, located 60 miles north of London, where 12,000 people, worked in total secrecy, to overcome German Japanese and Italian codes and ciphers. In the process they invented and used some of the first primitive computers. We’ll learn why, despite their impressive intellectual, and life-saving achievements, their accomplishments were largely unknown and almost totally unrecognized, until decades after the war. 

Frank Cardimen has been teaching at Oakland University for 44 years in Strategic Planning and International Management. This followed 20+ years in the automotive and chemical industries. Mr. Cardimen has taken groups of students to Europe and China annually since 1999 and has been an historian of WW II for over 60 years. He is also a consultant for Rochester Hills Museum at Van Hoosen Farms helping them develop a long-term strategy for funding that operation into the future.

Please note that this program will be presented live and on Zoom. You can attend the live presentation, for a chance to also mingle with your fellow Mensans and guests, at our usual location:

Northwest Unitarian Universalist Church in Southfield
23925 Northwestern Highway
Southfield, MI 48075

Doors open at 6:30pm (EDT). The program begins at 7:00pm. 

Ticket prices for the in-person program are:

Adult members: $5m or buy a strip of 4 tickets for $15. Adult guests: $6, Children 12 & under: $2
Members receive free admission in the month of their birthday.

Following the presentation, please join us for dinner at Buddy’s Pizza, located at 31646 Northwestern Highway, in Farmington Hills, just northeast of Middlebelt Road.

If you can’t join us in person, the Zoom room opens at 6:30pm (EDT) for mingling. 

There is no charge for the Zoom presentation, but, due to rising costs, your donation via PayPal is greatly appreciated. Please donate $5! To donate go to paypal.com and click on the “Send Money” tab. Enter the e-mail address treasurer@nullmensadetroit.com and your payment amount. Be sure to include a notation that your donation is for “SEMM Zoom Presentations.” 

Please remember that all attendees need to pre-register by clicking on the following link: https://tinyurl.com/SEMM-2024-Gathering .

There is no charge for the Zoom presentation, but, due to rising costs, your donation via PayPal is greatly appreciated. Please donate $5! To donate go to http://www.paypal.com and click on the “Send Money” tab. Enter the e-mail address treasurer@nullmensadetroit.com and your payment amount. Be sure to include a notation that your donation is for “SEMM Zoom Presentations.”

The Zoom room opens at 6:30pm (Eastern) for mingling. The program starts at 7:00pm (Eastern). Please remember that all attendees need to pre-register by clicking on the following link: https://tinyurl.com/SEMM-2024-Gathering