Gordon Kane, a prominent theoretical physicist from the University of Michigan, will give the 2014 Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics Lecture at the University of Virginia on Feb. 14 at 3:30 p.m. in the Jesse Beams Physics Building, room 203.

In his talk, “String Theory, Our Real World, and Higgs Bosons,” Kane will discuss how string theory – a major physics theory for describing the properties of particles – can address most questions about the behavior of the physical world. He will explain why string theory is testable in relation to research on the Higgs boson and other particles at Europe’s Large Hadron collider.

A reception will follow in room 205.

Kane received his Ph.D. at the University of Illinois and is the Victor Weisskopf Distinguished University Professor of Physics at Michigan. In 1971 he was a J.S. Guggenheim Fellow at Rutherford Laboratory and Oxford; in 1986 a scientific associate at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics; and in 2007 a member of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study.

A fellow of leading scientific organizations, Kane has chaired the National Science Foundation’s Theoretical Physics Subpanel and has served on the High Energy Physics and Scientific Advisory Committees at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

The lecture is sponsored by the U.Va. Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics, an organization of faculty, research associates and students involved in experimental and theoretical investigations in the areas of elementary and nuclear physics.