DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

THIS LECTURE HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS

Science in History is an occasional seminar series jointly sponsored by UCL Physics & Astronomy and Science & Technology Studies.

The series will present ideas from the history of science primarily from the point of view of scientists.

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Explaining the origin of structure in the universe

Simon Mitton

University of Cambridge

Date:

LECTURE POSTPONED

Location:

Abstract

This seminar traces the history of an intellectual puzzle: what is the origin of the large scale structure of the universe? Why are there galaxies and clusters of galaxies?

Dr Mitton’s recent book with Jeremiah P. Ostriker, Heart of Darkness: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Invisible Universe, tells the story of mankind’s attempts to understand the cosmos from classical antiquity to the present day. He will explain how cosmology has progressed from a theological doctrine to data-driven science, and has evolved into our current model, in which normal (baryonic) matter, uniformly distributed at the time of the Big Bang, became concentrated in stars, and how dark matter and dark energy entered the picture.

Dr Mitton is in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, and is Vice President of the Royal Astronomical Society.