Origins Institute: All from Nothing: The Structuring of our Universe
Professor Simon White, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics
Telescopes are time-machines. They allow us to see into the distant past. Our deepest images show the Universe not as it is today, but as it was just 400,000 years after the Big Bang. At that time there were no galaxies, no stars, no planets, no people, no familiar elements other than hydrogen and helium. The cosmos contained nothing but weak sound waves in a near-uniform fog. Supercomputers can compress thirteen billion years of cosmic evolution into a few months of calculation to show how these sound waves developed into the rich structure we see around us today. A study of their harmonic content gives clues to their origin. They appear to be an echo of quantum zero-point fluctuations occurring a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Thus our entire world may be a consequence of the nature of this early vacuum. In a very real sense, everything may have come from nothing.
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Who can attend: Everyone
Fee: Free
Registration: Online
Organized by: Origins Institute at McMaster University
Location: Michael G. DeGroote Centre for Learning and Discovery (MDCL-1105), 1280 Main St W, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1