FHSU University Relations
Fundamental physics, dark energy, matter, and universe expansion will be explored during a free lecture offered to high school students at FHSU.
The lecture, by Dr. Bharat Ratra, Kansas State University's distinguished professor of physics, will be on Monday, Feb. 10, from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. in Albertson Hall, room 169, FHSU campus.
The presentation, The Accelerating Expanding Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Einstein’s Cosmological Constant, will describe the astronomical data that persuade cosmologists that (yet undetected) dark energy and dark matter are by far the main components of the energy budget of the universe. Dark energy is the leading candidate for the mechanism responsible for accelerating the cosmological expansion.
Dr. Ratra will review how these observations have led to the development of a quantitative "standard" cosmology model that describes the universe's evolution from an early epoch of inflation to the complex hierarchy of structure seen today.
In this non-technical talk, he will also discuss the basic physics and the history of ideas on which this model is based.