Our Universe is filled with Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)
radiation having an almost perfect black body spectrum with a
temperature of To=2.7K. The number density of photons in our
Universe exceeds the number density of electrons by a factor
of...
General Relativity is one of two foundational pillars of
physics, yet gravity is the most weakly tested of the fundamental
forces. Using the pristine solar system as a laboratory, we bump
into this pillar to see if it might fall. This talk will...
Failed supernovae, where core collapse leads to the formation of
a black hole without an external supernova, have always been one of
the possible outcomes when a massive star dies. The observed
properties of the dying, progenitor stars, mismatches...
On March 21, 2013, the most detailed map of the infant universe
to date was publicly released, showing relic radiation from the Big
Bang, imprinted when the universe was just 380,000 years old. This
was the first release of cosmological data from...
Does the world embody beautiful ideas? This is a question that
people have thought about for a long time. Pythagoras and Plato
intuited that the world should embody beautiful ideas; Newton and
Maxwell demonstrated how the world could embody...
Scott
Tremaine, Richard Black Professor, School of Natural
Sciences
One of the remarkable successes of twentieth century astronomy was
the demonstration that the laws of physics derived in the
laboratory can successfully describe a wide range of...