The Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos is a multidisciplinary institute of Penn State researchers dedicated to the study of the most fundamental structure and constituents of the Universe.
News and Events
- The Sloan Digitial Sky Survery (SDSSIII) has provided new insights into evolutionary history of the universe. Don Schneider plays a leading role in the collaboration. For more information, please see http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2012-news/Schneider3-2012
The Center for Fundamental Theory of the IGC will host a workshop on "Physics with a Positive Cosmological Constant" on May 9-11, 2012. Several participants of the KITP program "Bits, Branes, Black Holes" will join us from Santa Barbara through remote-conferencing.
The observed accelerating expansion of the universe and the origin of primordial density fluctuations are two of the most fundamental mysteries in physics today. Both requite a better, and perhaps radically new, understanding of quantum physics in near de Sitter spaces. The main goal of this workshop is to provide a forum for discussion on these and related problems among researchers from different leading lines of thought, with input from the observational community.
- Dietrich Muller, an eminent physicist from the University of Chicago known for his research on mysterious astrophysical particles called cosmic rays, will give a free public lecture on 20 March 2012 at 7:30 PM in 102 Thomas Building on the Penn State University Park Campus.
- Peter Mészáros and the Fermi Telescope (February 2012). For more information, please see http://live.psu.edu/story/57873#rss49.
- Cover article featuring Loop Quantum Gravity appears in the December 2011 issue of La Recherche. PDF
- The scientists of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), including Don Schneider and Niel Brandt of the Center for Theoretical and Observational Cosmology of IGC, have produced a new map of the universe that is in full color, covers more than one quarter of the entire sky, and is full of so much detail that you would need 500,000 high-definition TVs to view it all. "This map of the universe, constructed from observations over the past decade, is an unprecedented view of the distribution of stars, galaxies, and quasars and allows us to trace the evolution of the constituents of the universe over vast swaths of cosmic time," said Donald Scheider. More....
Who Will Make Tomorrow's Discoveries?
Dr. Stephon Alexander is one of the National Geographic Society's Emerging Explorers. He is exploring the secrets of the early universe, at the intersection of fundamental physics and cosmology.
More about Who Will Make Tomorrow's Discoveries?.
Photograph by Diana Rogers
