Friday, October 1, 2010
(click here to view the slides used on the presentation)
Inaugurating the clubòÀÙs 2010-11 lecture series at the AMNH with a talk on òÀÜThe History of the Universe in One Hour,òÀÝ Tegmark cited recent results such as precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and three-dimensional galaxy maps from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), which has mapped more than 100 million galaxies over a large part of the celestial sphere.
Precision data have made cosmologists believable, Tegmark observed. The combination of advances in space technology to capture data in different wavelengths from above EarthòÀÙs atmosphere, in detector technology to improve sensitivity by 100 or even 1,000 times, and in computer technology to manipulate this large amount of information, has produced a revolution.
TegmarkòÀÙs research plans include looking much farther back in time, earlier than SDSS (which he has worked with), at the epoch before galaxies had formed. He spoke just after returning from successfully testing the prototype of a Fast Fourier Transform Telescope (FFTT), designed in collaboration with Matias Zaldarriaga, professor of astronomy and physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Tegmark showed how increasingly precise data have enabled researchers to refine error boundaries around cosmological parameters. He said the indication that space isnòÀÙt just really big but truly infinite is òÀÜa shocking surpriseòÀÝ. The implications of inflation include a multiverse, or parallel universes. Tegmark said more data may be available in the next few years that could provide the smoking-gun evidence that inflation is the right theory.