Oregon Nobel Laureate Symposium

Title

The Accelerating Universe

Streaming Media

Document Type

Video File

Duration

1 hour 26 minutes 34 seconds

Publication Date

4-8-2013

Disciplines

Astrophysics and Astronomy | Cosmology, Relativity, and Gravity | Physics | Stars, Interstellar Medium and the Galaxy

Abstract

Dr. Brian Schmidt, a co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics, presents a public lecture as part of the Oregon Nobel Laureate Symposium at Linfield College. In 1998, two teams traced back the expansion of the universe over billions of years and discovered that it was accelerating, a startling discovery contrary to the then-current theory that the universe's expansion should be slowing down. This revised understanding suggested that more than 70 percent of the cosmos is contained in a previously unknown form of matter, called dark energy. In this lecture, Schmidt, who led the High-Redshift Supernova Search Team, describes this historic development and explains how astronomers have used observations to trace the universe back more than 13 billion years, leading them to ponder the ultimate fate of the cosmos.

Comments

Sponsored by the Linfield College Office of the President and the Oregon Nobel Laureate Symposium Fund.

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