*SOUTHWORTH SCIENCE LECTURE*
"And Then There Was Light"
Thursday, April 25, 2019
7:00 p.m.
Presenter:  Dr. Bartley Cardon
USM Department of Physics

Admission by donation

The Big Bang.   Energy appeared.  Photons, then particles, emerged,
followed by stars and galaxies.   Planets formed and life began.  Our
cosmos evolved from the cradle to century 21 in near 15 billion years.
But, how do we know this cosmic history and how has our knowledge of the
cosmos been gathered?   Nature has generously provided us clues in the rich
assortment of electromagnetic energy availablein the sky for free.   We
have but to look, gather, sort, and interpret the information in the
spectrum of electromagnetic energy.   The spectrum is wide, so in our
ensuing talk we will observe it where it is relatively narrow and amenable
to our sense of sight.  Much has been learned here by the emission and
absorption of light in the violet to red region of the spectrum.  We'll
explore some of the history of the study of this region, the instruments
used to augment the limits of our vision, and learn how we have been able
to determine the composition of the universe (our periodic table) and its
age.  Thus our focus will be on the tools of optical spectroscopy and the
discipline of laboratory astrophysics. Demonstrations of spectra from
common elements will be provided.