Department of Physics
Princeton University
Thursday, September 15th 2022, 19:30
Stephen Leacock Building, Leacock Auditorium (room 132)
Our Expanding Universe
The evidence is that our universe is expanding from a hot dense state. So
what does this expansion mean? what is the evidence? and how can we be so
sure of it? I will offer answers to these questions and a related one. If the
evidence is so good why can't we identify the dark matter that is central
to our theory of the expanding universe? I will argue that the expanding
universe theory is well and convincingly established, but all our science
has open questions that require work; dark matter is an example. This is
the excitement of scientific research.
Friday, September 16th 2022, 15:30
Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, Keys Auditorium (room 112)
On the Philosophy and Sociology of Physical Science
Lessons about research in the natural sciences can be drawn from the
sociology and philosophy of science. For example, in 1960 Einstein's general
theory of relativity was standard and accepted physics. Elements of it were
on the qualifying exam I wrote as a graduate student. But there was little
empirical support for this theory; it was what sociologists could rightly
term a social construction. That has changed, but now we have other social
constructions in cosmology; consider the schematic model for dark matter. I
will offer more lessons of this sort drawn from how physical cosmology grew
from a social construction to a well-tested empirical construction.
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