From Mica
From the Big Bang to the Nobel Prize and the End of the Universe
a talk by John Mather, NASA GSFC, Nobel laureate in physics 2006, project scientist for the JWST
The history of the universe in a nutshell, from the Big Bang to now, and on to the future – John Mather will tell the story of how we got here, how the Universe began with a Big Bang, how it could have produced an Earth where sentient beings can live, and how those
beings are discovering their history. Mather was Project Scientist for
NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, which measured the
spectrum (the color) of the heat radiation from the Big Bang,
discovered hot and cold spots in that radiation, and hunted for the
first objects that formed after the great explosion. He will explain
Einstein’s biggest mistake, show how Edwin Hubble discovered the
expansion of the universe, how the COBE mission was built, and how the
COBE data support the Big Bang theory. He will also show NASA’s plans
for the next great telescope in space, the James Webb Space Telescope.
It will look even farther back in time than the Hubble Space
Telescope, and will look inside the dusty cocoons where stars and
planets are being born today. Planned for launch in 2014, it may lead
to another Nobel Prize for some lucky observer.
Media
Slides
Audio Recording
Video of the JWST unfolding in space