Samhain agus Science: The Dark Side of the Universe
29th October 2021 @ 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm
As part of our Samhain agus Science mini-festival and Dark Matter Day 2021, we present “The Dark Side of the Universe”, a talk delivered by Prof. Katherine Freese.
Prof. Freese will recount the ongoing search for understanding the nature of dark matter, the mysterious substance that constitutes most of the mass in the Universe.
The ordinary atoms that make up the known universe, from our bodies and the air we breathe to the planets and stars, constitute only 5% of all matter and energy in the cosmos. The remaining 95% is made up of a recipe of 25% dark matter and 70% dark energy, both nonluminous components whose nature remains a mystery. Katherine Freese will recount the stories of the dark matter puzzle, starting with the discoveries of visionary scientists from the 1930s who first proposed its existence, to Vera Rubin in the 1970s whose observations conclusively showed its dominance in galaxies, to the deluge of data today from underground laboratories, satellites in space, and the Large Hadron Collider. Theorists contend that dark matter most likely consists of new fundamental particles; the best candidates include WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles), axions, or light or fuzzy dark matter. Billions of them pass through our bodies every second without us even realizing it, yet their gravitational pull is capable of whirling stars and gas at breakneck speeds around the centers of galaxies, and bending light from distant bright objects. This talk will overview this cosmic cocktail. Many cosmologists believe we are on the verge of solving this mystery and this talk will provide the foundation needed to fully fathom this epochal moment in humankind’s quest to understand the universe.
This will be an online event hosted via Zoom. Registration is required.
About our Speaker
Dr. Freese is the Jeff and Gail Kodosky Endowed Chair in Physics at the University of Texas at Austin, a Professor of Physics at Stockholm University, and the George E. Uhlenbeck Professor Emerita of Physics at the University of Michigan. She has been working to identify the dark matter and dark energy that permeate the universe as well as to build a successful model for the early universe immediately after the Big Bang.
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As part of our Samhain agus Science mini-festival and Dark Matter Day 2021, we present “The Dark Side of the Universe”, a talk delivered by Prof. Katherine Freese.
Prof. Freese will recount the ongoing search for understanding the nature of dark matter, the mysterious substance that constitutes most of the mass in the Universe.
The ordinary atoms that make up the known universe, from our bodies and the air we breathe to the planets and stars, constitute only 5% of all matter and energy in the cosmos. The remaining 95% is made up of a recipe of 25% dark matter and 70% dark energy, both nonluminous components whose nature remains a mystery. Katherine Freese will recount the stories of the dark matter puzzle, starting with the discoveries of visionary scientists from the 1930s who first proposed its existence, to Vera Rubin in the 1970s whose observations conclusively showed its dominance in galaxies, to the deluge of data today from underground laboratories, satellites in space, and the Large Hadron Collider. Theorists contend that dark matter most likely consists of new fundamental particles; the best candidates include WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles), axions, or light or fuzzy dark matter. Billions of them pass through our bodies every second without us even realizing it, yet their gravitational pull is capable of whirling stars and gas at breakneck speeds around the centers of galaxies, and bending light from distant bright objects. This talk will overview this cosmic cocktail. Many cosmologists believe we are on the verge of solving this mystery and this talk will provide the foundation needed to fully fathom this epochal moment in humankind’s quest to understand the universe.
This will be an online event hosted via Zoom. Registration is required.
About our Speaker
Dr. Freese is the Jeff and Gail Kodosky Endowed Chair in Physics at the University of Texas at Austin, a Professor of Physics at Stockholm University, and the George E. Uhlenbeck Professor Emerita of Physics at the University of Michigan. She has been working to identify the dark matter and dark energy that permeate the universe as well as to build a successful model for the early universe immediately after the Big Bang.
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