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On mobile? You’ll be able to watch the livestream at 7 p.m. ET here
A Waterloo cosmologist has given himself the enormous task of explaining the history of the universe in a sold-out, hour-long public lecture.
Kendrick Smith, a researcher with Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, will give what’s being called a “state of the universe address” on Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET before a live audience.
“I see it as an attempt to answer some of the oldest, most self-motivated questions that we might have,” Smith said, including questions about the beginning and ending of the universe.
Cosmologist Kendrick Smith will try to answer some of the questions that humans have asked for centuries in an hour. (Perimeter Insititute)
“I think people have always been interested in questions like this. From our early days of prehistoric times, people looked out into the sky and wondered, ‘What’s out there? What’s it all about?'”
Smith said that, in the past 30 years, cosmologists have come closer to answering some of those questions, but he doesn’t think the new understanding has made it into public consciousness.
“So, I just wanted to give a short lecture to explain our current understanding of the universe…and what we’re still trying to figure out.”
It may seem like an impossible task, but Smith says that, by omitting the math and focusing on the big picture, it is possible to fit the history of the universe into the space of one hour.
