FREE EVENT

Arthur Kosowsky, a top expert in cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, will speak about a new discovery made using the BICEP telescope at the South Pole earlier this year. Physicists noticed a subtle change in the CMB, which is hypothesized to be the result of gravitational waves by a sudden cosmic expansion during the very earliest moments of the universe. If the hypothesis is true, it opens a remarkable window into physics at a scale we will never be able to probe with experiments on Earth.

Kosowsky will talk about the science behind these ideas, what kinds of observations need to be done to decide the source of what we are seeing in the microwave sky, what this might tell us about the universe, and what kinds of future physics experiments and theories it might prompt.

Arthur Kosowsky is a professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh. He received his PhD in physics from the University of Chicago in 1994 and has been on the faculty of Pitt since 2005. He is the author of many scientific papers about the universe, and is also a member of the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) project.

Food and drinks will be available for purchase during the event.