Over the last two decades, powerful new observations have lent overwhelming support to the idea that everything in the visible universe emerged from a Big Bang, 14 billion years ago.
But was caused the bang? And was the bang the beginning of time? Only a few decades ago, these questions were considered beyond the reach of science.
Neil Turok
However, unified theories of high energy physics have allowed scientists to build mathematical models of the bang itself, and to test them both for logical completeness and consistency, and, most excitingly, with new observations.
The Theoretical Physics Program at Western presents professor Neil Turok, Director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, at a free lecture titled ‘What Banged’, Wednesday (Feb. 25) beginning at 4:30 p.m. in Conron Hall.
Turok will be reviewing two models: one in which the universe began at the bang, and the other in which the bang was a violent event in a pre-existing universe. The competition between these models lies at the heart of many deep questions about the universe, and the ultimate ability to understand it.