Nobel Laureate Adam Riess recently visited the UC Davis campus to tell the story of the surprising expansion history of the universe. It’s a story Riess played a pivotal role in revealing. In 2011, he was one of three scientists awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae.”
Distinguished Professor Andreas Albrecht, Department of Physics and Astronomy, recently sat down with World Science Festival co-founder, author and physicist Brian Greene for a wide-ranging conversation about the origins of our universe.
Light pollution dampens our view of the stars, hindering our connection to the universe above. It’s one of the reasons why astronomical observatories are erected in remote, often pristine, places. The opportunity to travel to such places drew Lori Lubin to astronomy.
This week, Manuel Calderón de la Barca Sánchez returned to his alma mater in Mexico to host screenings of ‘Secrets of the Universe,’ an IMAX film that explores the formation of the universe through the eyes of Aggie researchers. Calderón de la Barca Sánchez, a UC Davis physics professor, hopes the film will inspire students to pursue STEM education and careers.
In two new papers appearing in Physical Review Research, UC Davis and Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers introduce a new model to explain the phenomenon of decoherence, when a system’s behavior shifts from being explainable by quantum mechanics to being explainable by classical mechanics. The new model divorces the arrow of time from the go-to theoretical tool for understanding decoherence.
