The next Physics Cafe will take place Monday (February 13) at 3 p.m. in Horan-O’Donnell, Room 103 with a talk by Robert Poltis, a graduate of the Canisius College Physics Department. Poltis is presently working on his doctorate at the University at Buffalo, and his talk will be an introduction to the field of cosmology.
Cosmology is the study of the nature, history, and evolution of the universe. Thanks to recent technological advancements, our generation is the first to see cosmology move from a speculative pursuit to a data-driven science. Modern cosmology is a marriage of particle physics, general relativity, and astrophysics. Despite the enormous success over the last 20 years of cosmological exploration, there still remain some bothersome problems that the standard model of cosmology does not address. Poltis will review the basic picture of cosmology, and present a creative new idea to explain some of these peculiar observations and measurements including dark energy, the fine tuning of the Higgs mass, and the information loss paradox of black holes.
Submitted by: Michael Wood, PhD, assistant professor, physics
