The cosmic forces of 14 billion years of universe history brought more than 70 of the world's greatest thinkers to Case Western Reserve University.

The scientists projected where the next 25 years of research might take astrophysicists and cosmologists during the Kavli-CERCA Future of Cosmology conference, hosted earlier this month by Case's new Center for the Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics (CERCA)-a collaboration between the department of physics and the Shafran Planetarium at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Among the astrophysicists at the conference were Nobel Laureate Steve Weinberg, who opened the conference with his talk at the museum, and Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge University professor and bestselling author of "A Brief History of Time" and other works, who received honors and gave the university's Michelson-Morley Award Lecture at Severance Hall.

During the Michelson-Morley event, an Ohio Historical Marker was unveiled on stage at Severance. Eventually the marker will stand before Adelbert Hall. The award, as well as the marker, honor the scientists-Albert A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley-for their experiment that led to Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. The foundations for the experiment were laid in the basement of what was then called Adelbert Hall; it was a dormitory, later known as Pierce Hall, on the site of the present Millis Science Center.

Lawrence Krauss, the Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics and conference chair, said the conference will be "long remembered as one of the most exciting meetings in cosmology in recent times."
Krauss, with Case Physicist John Ruhl, will be the director and co-director of CERCA, respectively. The new center will provide research opportunities in cosmology as well as design new planetarium programs to educate the public.

"It is clear that there remains outstanding theoretical puzzles that will keep us busy for many years, even beyond the 25-year time scale," said Tanmay Vachaspati, Case professor of physics who studies cosmic string theory.

Cosmic strings, suspected defects on the topology of the early universe development, was among the conference discussions.

The conference shed new light on the universe's early development as Adam Riess, a scientist from the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., reported that the universe jerked about 5 billion years ago to shift from a slow speed to a higher acceleration in its expansion.

Also discussed was whether the universe is round like a soccer ball, somewhat flat like a pancake or some other unique shape. Case's Glenn Starkman, a professor of physics on research leave to Switzerland this year, refuted a newly published study in "Nature" that says the universe is a ball-like shape.

Another big area of research in cosmology is the search for dark matter-one suspected form of which is Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPS). Daniel Akerib, who heads a team at Case that has built a National Science Foundation-funded detector, led a session with Christopher Mihos, Case assistant professor of astronomy, about new research into dark matter.

They had the opportunity to hear from Joe Silk of Oxford University, who co-authored a new paper published a week before the conference on the discovery of a modified form of WIMPS emanating from the center of the galaxy. Silk encouraged researchers like Akerib to use their detectors to search for these new particles.

In addition, Corbin Covalt, Case associate professor and CERCA conference committee member, moderated discussions on ultra high energy cosmic rays.

Return to the online edition of the 10-30-03 Campus News.