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.