Dr. John C Mather
13th February | 19:00-21:00 Hrs | EEE Audi
Dr John C Mather of the Goddard Space Research Centre of NASA and head of the COBE [Cosmic Background Explorer] Project is a man who is playing a key role in answering this question. Having won virtually every academic honour throughout his career as a student and researcher, he topped it all off with the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2006 for measuring the intensity of Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation [CMBR] that permeates the entire universe and currently forms the basis of the Big Bang theory and all currently accepted models of the evolution of the universe.
The work on CMBR has been hailed by Stephen Hawking as "The Discovery Of The Century, if not all time," COBE's measurement of the cosmic background radiation and tiny variations therein confirmed the Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe. Having played a key role in the COBE Project, Dr Mather's work has been acclaimed and lauded as "The starting point for Cosmology as a precision science". COBE showed that microwave radiation that fills the universe has an exquisite perfection that proves it came from the Big Bang itself. Even more beautifully, it found tiny variations in its brightness that come from quantum sound waves in that great explosion, these being the primordial seeds that would nucleate the growth of galaxies and make our own existence possible.
Currently, Dr Mather heads the James Webb Space Telescope Project, which shall replace the immensely successful and legendary Hubble Telescope and shall become the eyes of mankind in the infinity of Space.
Not confining himself to the niche academic arena, Dr Mather has detailed every nuance of the COBE mission through his bestseller, "The Very First Light: The True Inside Story Of The Scientific Journey Back To The Dawn Of The Universe"100 Most Influential People of 2007 His efforts have opened a whole new world of cosmology to the common man and inspired a whole new generation of astrophysicists. In fact, Dr Mather was one of TIME Magazine's .
Come and be inspired!!! Pragyan '09 presents a VC with the man himself, Dr. John C Mather.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._MatherTitle: "From the Big Bang to the Nobel Prize and on to the James Webb Space Telescope"
The history of the universe in a nutshell, from the Big Bang to now, and on to the future – John Mather will tell the story of how we got here, how the Universe began with a Big Bang, how it could have produced an Earth where sentient beings can live, and how those beings are discovering their history. Mather was Project Scientist for NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, which measured the spectrum (the color) of the heat radiation from the Big Bang, discovered hot and cold spots in that radiation, and hunted for the first objects that formed after the great explosion. He will explain Einstein's biggest mistake, show how Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe, how the COBE mission was built, and how the COBE data support the Big Bang theory.
He will also show NASA's plans for the next great telescope in space, the James Webb Space Telescope. It will look even farther back in time than the Hubble Space Telescope, and will look inside the dusty cocoons where stars and planets are being born today. Planned for launch in 2013, it may lead to another Nobel prize for some lucky observer.
