KIPAC Special Colloquium: 'Swirls from the Big Bang'

With the first images of gravitational waves, SLAC, Stanford and KIPAC scientists come together to hold a special celebratory colloquium.

(Originally published by SLAC)

Please check back at 2:55pm PDT on March 19 to view the live event.

A team of researchers working on the BICEP2 experiment has announced the first direct evidence of cosmic inflation, a momentous experimental result that supports and gives new details on the Big Bang Theory of the Universe. Their data also represent the first images of gravitational waves, ripples in space-time that have been described as the "first tremors of the Big Bang." Finally, the observations confirm a deep connection between quantum mechanics and general relativity.

SLAC and Stanford scientists, many from the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC), are at the center of these exciting new results and will be holding a special colloquium to celebrate on Wednesday, March 19 from 3:00-5:30pm PDT on the SLAC campus. Video of the colloquium will be streamed on this page.

Tentative Schedule (speakers and exact timing subject to change):

  • 3:00pm: Chao-Lin Kuo, co-leader of the BICEP2 collaboration, assistant professor of physics at SLAC, Stanford
  • 3:35pm: Andrei Linde, author of inflationary cosmology theory, Harald Trap Friis professor of physics at Stanford
  • 4:00pm: Eva Silverstein, professor of physics at Stanford and SLAC
  • 4:10pm: Uros Seljak, professor of physics at UC Berkeley and LBNL
  • 4:20pm: Ryan Keisler, Kavli Fellow at KIPAC
  • 4:30pm: Kent Irwin, professor of physics at SLAC and Stanford
  • 4:40pm: Leonardo Senatore, assistant professor of physics at Stanford and SLAC
  • 4:50pm: Renata Kallosh, professor of physics at Stanford
  • 5:00pm: General Discussion