Department of Physics


Department of Physics Apple - Gravity

Phone (701) 231-8974, fax (701) 231-7088


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.