Prix G. Lemaître 2024 Public talk 16 May 2024 in auditorium A.10 at 12:45
Professor Wendy Freedman is the recipient of the Prix G. Lemaître 2024. She will be giving a talk for the general public on 16 May 2024 in auditorium A.10 at 12.45pm. The content will be "Modern Measurements of the Hubble-Lemaître Law".
Prof. Freedman is a Canadian-American cosmologist at the University of Chicago who works in the area of refining measurement of the Hubble Constant. She is renowned for her work on Cepheid variable stars through a Hubble Space Telescope Key Project. Her work and accomplishments are closely connected to the big-bang theory of Georges Lemaître.
Wendy Freedman's research is in observational cosmology (measures of the expansion rate of the universe using the Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope and the ground-based Magellan telescope). Her current projects involve measurements of the Hubble constant -- the current expansion rate, as well as the past expansion rate -- providing constraints on the acceleration of the universe and dark energy.
Talk title : Modern Measurements of the Hubble-Lemaître Law
Summary :
In 1927 the Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaître proposed a solution to Einstein’s equations that predicted an expanding universe. In 1929 astronomer Edwin Hubble measured the distances to extragalactic nebulae, showing the existence of galaxies outside of the Milky Way, and plotted a relation between galaxy distances and their velocities, a relation now known as the Hubble-Lemaître law. Together, both theory and observations provided evidence for a universe in which the galaxies are participating in an overall expansion of space. The current rate of expansion, called the Hubble constant, is a measure of the age and size of the universe. Professor Freedman will describe the current state of cosmology and her work with the Hubble Space Telescope that has led to some of the most precise measurements of the Hubble constant made to date. She will also present some new data from the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope that promises to resolve many of the issues currently confronting these measurements.