College of Science and Engineering presents a free public lecture entitled, ''Supernovae and the Discovery of the Accelerating Universe' by Nobel Laureate Adam Riess.

From the website: In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that our Universe is expanding. Eighty years later, the Space Telescope that bears his name is being used to study an even more surprising phenomenon, that the expansion is speeding up. The origin of this effect is not known but is broadly attributed to a type of “dark energy” first posited to exist by Albert Einstein and now dominating the mass-energy budget of the Universe.

In this lecture, Nobel Laureate Adam Riess will describe how his team discovered the acceleration of the Universe and why understanding the nature of dark energy presents one of the greatest remaining challenges in astrophysics and cosmology.

Riess, who is a Professor at John Hopkins University and a member of the Space Telescope Science Institute won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011 for discovering that expansion rate of the Universe is accelerating, implying in the simplest interpretation, that the energy density is non-vanishing, even in the absence of any matter and radiation.

The Kaufmanis Lecture is presented in memory of beloved Professor of Astronomy Karlis Kaufmanis, bringing distinguished scientists to the campus to provide public lectures on the latest hot topics in research.

The event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. 

The presentation is made possible by the Karlis Kaufmanis Lectureship fund, the Abigail and John Van Vleck Lectureship fund, and generous support from Dana and Jeff Puschell, 1979 Ph.D. Astrophysics.