Ratra to Present at Topeka Science Cafe on January 10

Dr. Bharat Ratra will present a talk at the Topeka Science Café in January. The event will be held on Tuesday, January 10, beginning at 5:30 p,m, with the talk to start around 6:30 p.m. at Perkins Family Restaurant on 1720 SW Wanamaker Road in Topeka.

Dr. Ratra will speak about "The Accelerating Expanding Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and Einstein's Cosmological Constant."

Dark energy is the leading candidate for the mechanism that is responsible for causing the cosmological expansion to accelerate. I will describe the astronomical data that suggest dark energy and dark matter are the main components of the energy budget of the universe at the present time. I will review how these observations have led to the development of a model of cosmology that describes the evolution of the universe from an early epoch of inflation to the complex hierarchy of structure seen today. I will also discuss the basic physics, and the history of ideas, on which this model is based.

Join the group at around 5:30 pm to order food/drinks. They aim to start the talk about 6:30.