From the Accelerating Universe to Accelerating Science

Twenty years ago, astronomers were astonished to learn from observations of exploding stars that cosmic expansion is speeding up. We attribute this to a mysterious “dark energy” that pervades the universe and makes up 70% of it. Scientists are working in many ways to learn more about the nature of dark energy, but our reservoir of ignorance is deep. This talk will summarize the present state of knowledge and look ahead to new ways to use infrared observations of supernovae to improve our grip on dark energy. Accelerating scientific discovery is a mission of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Professor Kirshner will illustrate some of the ways we do that at Berkeley and beyond.

Speaker: Robert Kirshner, Harvard