1

Starter

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/bb_popup_history Movie.htm

What do you think that was about?

What was the noise at the start?

the big bang

3

Starter

http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/seuforum/bb_popup_historyMovie.htm

 

The frames are as follows:

     Just before the Big Bang Instant of the Big Bang First 3 minutes 300 thousand years 100 million years A billion years 14 billion years

4

Main Task

What actually happened?

5

Main Task

How do we know when something happens?

6

Main Task

Show me the evidence!

Main Task

“from speculation to precision science” 7 Full sky picture of cosmic microwave radiation taken by WMAP 2003

8

Main Task

cosmic microwave background radiation

9

Main Task

Timeline of the Universe

10

Main Task

Evolution of Universe: a scientific model

11

Main Task

Inside the Large Hadron Collider

12

Activity 1

The

who did what?

Soup

Georges Lemaître Edwin Hubble Alan Guth and Andrei Linde Fred Hoyle Arno Penzias & Robert Wilson Dave Wilkinson George Gamow Robert Dicke & PJE Pebbles

13

Activity 2

The Origins of the Universe: a chronology of ideas

The Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari The Bakhtiari (Persia) The Lapps Ancient Chinese cultures Ancient Hebrews Ancient Greeks – e.g. the Pythagoreans Ptolemaic theories Alchemical theories of man and nature The Renaissance scientists – e.g. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton New age theories – from Einstein to today

Activity 3

A Conference: finding out about The Large Hadron Collider

 What is the

standard model of particle physics

? (include some historical background)  Why was the LHC constructed (for what purpose)? What risks does it pose? How do you think decisions were made to go ahead with its construction?

14  How do you think the LHC will change the study of physics in the future? (offer a comparative account of knowledge about particle physics from its inception to today . . . and into the future)

15

Plenary

16

Plenary

People often ask questions like . . .

     

If there was a Big Bang, then what was there before the Big Bang?

If time began at the Big Bang, was there no time before that and . . . what does that mean? Is the Big Bang an irrefutable fact?

If the Big Bang really happened, what made it happen?

Can events like the Big Bang just spontaneously happen?

and . . . Why on earth am I here?

17

From a theoretical physicist . . .

“I wish science could easily provide an answer to these questions, but in my view, it cannot. But that doesn’t mean it is impossible to arrive at a well thought out worldview . . . go back and study some more and make up your own mind!” Ard Louis, theoretical physicist (2005)

18