The Spring 2005 Meeting

of the American Association of Physics Teachers, Northern California/Nevada and Southern California Sections

California State University at Fresno
http://www.csufresno.edu/
Saturday, April 9, 2005
Don't miss this talk!

The Dark Century: Matter, Energy, and the Future of the Universe

Dark matter is a sort of shorthand for an enormous body of evidence indicating that most of the stuff in the universe neither emits nor absorbs its fair share of light. Some of the data go back more than 80 years, and there are hints it’s even earlier. Dark energy, also called quintessence, the cosmological constant, and even worse things, is both an integration constant in Einstein’s equations and a similar shorthand. The database here is not quite so extensive or so deeply grounded in history, but still very persuasive, implying that the universe is as flat as general relativity allows and that its expansion is accelerating. There are droves of candidates for both dark matter particles and dark energy fields, though so far no laboratory detections of any. Something can, however, be said about their properties, which, in turn, determine the long-range future.