Science with a crowd: The Zooniverse from Galaxy Zoo to LSST

Physics Colloquium 30th January 2015 delivered by Chris Lintott The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most successful scientific crowdsourcing platform, engaging more than a million volunteers in tasks including classifying galaxies, discovering planets and mapping star formation in the Milky Way. This talk will present highlights from the last six years, including the serendipitous discovery of galaxy-scale light echoes, and explain how an unusual set of bulgeless spiral galaxies identified by Galaxy Zoo volunteers is informing models of galaxy formation and feedback. The talk will also set out the future for this massively distributed effort in the world of future facilities such as the LSST and SKA, discuss differences between humans and machines, and include at least two images of penguins. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/