Going to the Ends of the Earth to Study the Beginnings of Time

The cosmic microwave background radiation is the oldest light we can see. Since it bears the imprint of the universe just after the Big Bang (at a mere 0.003% of the universe's age today), it has been a crucial tool in our quest to understand how the Universe began and what its future holds. The pursuit of the cosmic microwave background has driven scientists to the coldest and driest desert on the planet: the high Antartic plateau. For the past 20 years or so, scientists have built telescopes at the South Pole to make detailed maps of the cosmic microwave background. We will discuss what we know about the Big Bang; the latest results from the South Pole, and what its like to work at the bottom of the world.

Speaker: Christian Reichardt, UC Berkeley