Rapid advancements in
cosmology over the last couple of decades have made us realise that there could
be more than one universe in existence - what scientists call the
"Multiverse".
We have also
discovered that instead of the Universe ending in a "Big Crunch" it will instead
expand forever. This expansion is even accelerating thanks to the
mysterious "Dark Energy" that permeates space itself. The Universe will die in a
"heat death", where space itself will be so stretched out that even the distance
between individual atoms will be immense.
Our knowledge of the
Universe has grown from the Cosmic Microwave Background: something of an "echo"
from the Big Bang and a fingerprint of the early Universe. But while we have
learned much about the Universe, there are still many questions to be answered:
which universe is ours, and why is our universe the way it is?
The March Public
Lecture will be delivered by Professor Andrew Liddle from Edinburgh University,
and will take place in Trinity College Dublin on Monday, March 11th, at
8pm.
Book tickets and
order DVDs of this lecture online at www.astronomy.ie or by calling (01)
890 11 11.