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25 February 2009
Professor Malcolm Longair, an eminent cosmologist from Cambridge University in the UK, gave a talk at the University of Cape Town entitled "Hot News from the Big Bang: Why Inflation is a Good Thing" to about 300 students, staff and public. The talk was part of a series of annual lectures co-hosted by the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme (NASSP) at UCT, with previous lectures by Jocelyn Bell-Burnell (2008) and Joe Silk (2007). Longair is in South Africa to present at the SKA Forum 2009 held in Cape Town on 25 February 2009.
Professor Longair presented how cosmologists have slowly reached a general consensus regarding the values of the cosmological parameters – what is missing now is the Physics to explain their values. These values show that we live in a flat universe consisting of 4% ordinary matter, 21% Dark Matter and 75% Dark Energy, but we "haven't the slightest clue what Dark Matter and Dark Energy are". These problems, says Longair, will be solved by the next generation of scientists through projects like the Square Kilometer Array.
After outlining some of the current problems in cosmology, he argued that cosmological (not economic) inflation is a good thing as it provides a "somewhat compelling" solution to some of these problems. In particular, it answers the fundamental problem of producing the gross irregularities of the observed extragalactic structure from the remarkably smooth Cosmic Microwave Background.
A vibrant and enthusiastic lecturer, Longair's talk was enjoyed by those present. Professor Longair concluded that it is young people who will pick up the challenge and convert the unknown unknowns of cosmology to known unknowns and then known knowns.
His other public talk, called "Black holes made simple" on 23 February 2009 at the MTN ScienceCentre in Cape Town was so popular that their 200-seat auditorium was packed and people even sat in the isles for an opportunity to listen to this excellent science communicator. "Longair was was awe-inspiring and captured the imaginations of an audience that included ages from 7 to 70+", says Ryan Bruton of the MTN ScienCentre.
Text: Wendy William (Astronomy Masters student and SKA bursary holder at UCT)
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