Free Public Lecture. RSVP: To fste.events@latrobe.edu.au
In 1998 two teams traced back the expansion of the universe over billions of years and discovered that it was accelerating, a startling discovery that suggests that more than 70 per cent of the cosmos is contained in a previously unknown form of matter, called Dark Energy.
The 2011 Nobel Laureate for Physics, Brian Schmidt, leader of the High-Redshift Supernova Search Team, will describe this discovery and explain how astronomers have used observations to trace our universe's history back more than 13 billion years, leading them to ponder the ultimate fate of the cosmos.
Professor Schmidt has also been awarded the Australian Government's inaugural Malcolm McIntosh award for achievement in the Physical Sciences in 2000, the Australian Academy of Sciences Pawsey Medal in 2001, the Astronomical Society of India's Vainu Bappu Medal in 2002, and an Australian Research Council Federation Fellowship in 2005.