Saturday Morning Physics | Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Einstein’s Cosmological Constant

Hybrid Lecture: Join us in Weiser Hall in person (Rooms 170 and 182) or stream live: https://myumi.ch/G7qzp

Dark energy is the leading candidate for the mechanism driving the acceleration of the universe's expansion. Bharat Ratra will describe the astronomical data that persuades cosmologists that dark matter and the as-yet-undetected dark energy are by far the main components of the universe at present. He will review how observations have led to the development of a quantitative "standard" model of cosmology that describes the evolution of the universe from the structureless epoch of inflation to the complex structure seen today. In this non-technical talk, he will also discuss the basic physics and the history of the ideas underlying this model.