Well before ‘The Big Bang Theory" was a popular television sitcom, it provided a serious scientific answer to a question people have asked since the beginning of time: How did the universe begin?
Cornell University professor Liam McAllister told an audience Thursday that recent developments have allowed scientists to understand the universe's development from fractions of a second after its conception to the present.
McAllister, an expert in string theory, discussed developments in cosmology during the past decade and explained their effects on the understanding of the formation of galaxies in a way that the average person could understand.
"21st century physics connects the extremely large and the extremely small," McAllister said.
Both of these factors play an important part in understanding the big bang and its role in the formation of galaxies.
In a speech titled "The Sound of the Beginning: Echoes of the Big Bang in the Night Sky," he explained two of the biggest questions that cosmologists are working to answer: What the universe was in the beginning and what it is now.
The title of the speech is derived from the immediate result of the big bang, known as "the first sound," which laid out the basis for the formation of the galaxies. Recently cosmologists have discovered more about the patterns in which the galaxies have formed by measuring the peaks and troughs of the first sound.
These recent discoveries were based on a discovery made in 1965 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. The two astrophysicists constructed a microwave telescope in order to study the universe.
Their telescope revealed a significant amount of static which, upon further inspection, suggested that the static was consistent throughout the universe. This static was later found to be a remnant of the big bang.
The fact that this static was consistent throughout the universe allowed scientists to understand the conditions in which the big bang took place.
Speaking to a crowd of approximately 50 people in the Health and Public Affairs Building, McAllister used analogies to make the complex concepts he was discussing accessible to everyone in the audience.
He encouraged questions throughout the speech and was often able to answer difficult questions in a simple way that anyone in the audience could understand.
Stefan Engelhardt had seen McAllister speak before and enjoyed it so much that he brought a group of friends along to see him this time raved about McAllister's accessible speaking style.
"It's interesting and really fun to watch people like this explain these things to people who may not understand," the junior double majoring in mathematics and physics said.
After McAllister's speech everyone in the room, be they physics majors or just casual observers, left with a greater understanding of the big bang theory.
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