Distinguished Professor of Physics to Lecture on the Expanding Universe
Distinguished Professor of Physics Bharat Ratra, of Kansas State University in Manhattan, KS, will speak about the expanding universe at 7 p.m. on Nov. 12 in the Coulter Science Center lecture hall at Westminster College.
Ratra’s lecture, titled “The Accelerating, Expanding Universe,” is free and open to the public.
An internationally recognized cosmologist, Ratra will discuss research on the dancing universe that he completed in close collaboration with Nobel Prize-winning physicist Professor J. Peebles of Princeton University in Princeton, NJ.
Ratra’s discussion will be directed at a general audience and will cover the triumphs, mysteries and challenges of modern cosmology. Dark energy — the leading cause of cosmological expansion — will be discussed at length.
Peng Yu, Associate Professor of Mathematics, says it is remarkable that 96 percent of the universe appears mostly unobserved scientifically. “Professor Ratra’s lecture will depict a clear picture of the known knowns, the known unknowns and, of course, the unknown unknowns in the present landscape of cosmology,” Yu says.
A question-and-answer session will follow the lecture, which is sponsored by the Westminster Math Club and Alpha Lambda Delta honors society.
Ratra joined Kansas State University in 1996 as an assistant professor of physics. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. He earned a doctorate in physics from Stanford University and a master’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi.
For more information about Ratra, go here.
Founded in 1851, Westminster College is a small, premiere, private liberal arts college nestled in the hills of central Missouri. The College focuses on helping all students find their unique purpose while educating and inspiring them to become young leaders who change the world. To learn more about Westminster College, visit our website here.
