| The void at the end of the Universe | Black holes and quasars |
| South:
Monday, 21 May
Hutchins School Conference Centre, 2:00 to 2:50 pm |
North:
Friday 25 May 2001
The Flight Deck, Launceston College 1 pm |
| Only a few years ago, astronomers were struggling to understand the shape of our Universe, how it started, and how it would end. In the last couple of years, there has been a revolution in our understanding, and pieces of this exciting puzzle are starting to fall into place. This lecture starts by outlining our place in the Universe, and discusses the discoveries which have re-shaped our view of the Universe. It then traces the history of the Universe from its earliest moments after the Big Bang, through the present time, to the ultimate end when the Universe dies, not with a bang, but with a whimper. |
For some years, black holes have been the stuff of
science-fiction movies together with some of the more way-out
astrophysics research. In recent years, however, we have gathered
strong evidence that massive black holes are real, and they're out
there, and they power quasars. In fact, it's now widely accepted that
most galaxies probably have a massive black hole at their centre. In
this talk, I'll describe what a black hole is and the weird things it
does. Then I'll show the observational results that make us think
they're real, and talk about what this means for our understanding of
how galaxies were born.
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