Seminar Abstract
Shapley Astronomy Lecture
November 19, 2002 at 8:00 p.m.
Memorial Union, Century Theatre
"A Modern Scientific Paradox:
The Biggest and Smallest Things in Nature Are the Same"
Dr. George A. Seielstad
Department of Space Studies and
School of Aerospace Sciences
University of North Dakota
I will discuss how minute fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background
Radiation (CMBR) evolved into the structures we see today -- clusters of
clusters of galaxies. Before the CMBR, each tiny temperature fluctuation
might have been a subatomic particle. The beauty of this synthesis is
that two fields of science came together at the beginning of time.
Radio telescopes looking as far as can be seen, and particle accelerators
probing matter to its most fundamental level, overlap in this era that
preceded the birth of everything we know ... including us.
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