Our forty-ninth Standing-Room Only Lecture will have Emily Zhang coming home to talk about the true origins of the dummy text beginning with “Lorem Ipsum.” Sources everywhere have long claimed that it was invented in the 1500s, but no evidence has ever backed that up. Emily went down a rabbit hole to find its true inventor, a journey documented in a YouTube video with 2 million views. She’ll show us how she figured it all out—with a few extra details of the story thrown in.
Our speaker, Emily Zhang, is a writer and director specializing in science videos on YouTube. She has created dozens of videos on subjects ranging from the physics of bowling to the invention of the blue LED. Together her videos have received over 250 million views. She studied astrophysics at Columbia University and now has her own YouTube channel, Rabbit Hole, that provided “extraordinary answers to everyday questions.” In 2025, she was given the National Academies’ Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications.
Tickets are available for $10 each.
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Date and Time
Saturday, September 19 at 7p
Doors open at 6p for mingling.
Place
Katherine Small Gallery
108 Beacon Street
Somerville, MA 02143 [map]
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Standing-Room Only Lectures aim to present short talks about graphic design, typography, and collecting. The lectures are kept to about twenty minutes because—true to its name—the series takes place in our standing-room only gallery. So, wear comfortable shoes and bring a short attention span.