"Building a Universe Byte by Byte" 

By Prof Brad Gibson, Theoretical Astrophysics, University Central Lancashire.

Cr: UCLAN

The formation of structure and galaxies throughout the Universe is the driving force behind billion-dollar Technological developments such as the Square Kilometer Array, the James Webb Space Telescope, and Extremely    Large (ground-based) Telescopes.  I will take the audience through a tour of the formation and evolution of the largest structures in the Universe, highlighting the inter-dependency upon physics and micro-physics across a wide dynamic range.  While I will discuss the success of the current astrophysical paradigm in which this work is conducted, the emphasis of the talk will be on several of the key unanswered scientific questions driving the UK's participation in these (and several other) big international projects.  Recent highlights to be touched upon will include: simulating the first objects in the universe, the near-field cosmological structure of the Milky Way, and alternative theories of gravity.

BRAD GIBSON.  B.Sc. (Waterloo, 1988), Ph.D. (British Columbia, 1995),
Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics (University of Central Lancashire,
UK, 2006-); Professor of Astrophysics (Swinburne University, Australia,
2000-2005); Research Associate (University of Colorado, 1998-2000), NSERC
Fellow (Australian National University, 1995-1998).

Scientific interests: galaxy formation and evolution (designing
high-performance computational tools to simulate galaxy formation), the
distance scale (determined the expansion rate of the Universe as part of
the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project on the Extragalactic Distance
Scale), chemical evolution of the intergalactic and interstellar medium,
high-velocity clouds (uncovered the mystery of the anomalous velocity gas
clouds circling the Milky Way), galactic archaeology (employing forensic
techniques to deconstruct the history of the Milky Way - see April 2007
issue of Scientific American for his article on the subject), stellar
populations, high performance computational astrophysics, astrophysical
sociology, novel instrumentation (built the world's first Liquid Mirror
Telecope Observatory - a 2.7-metre facility outside of Vancouver -
awarded a SPIE Scholarship in Optical Engineering for this work).

Scientific Editor for The Astrophysical Journal, Lead Investigator of The
Commonwealth Cosmology Initiative, Chair of UCLan High Performance
Computing Steering Committee, Member of the Radial Velocity Experiment
Science Working Group, Maintainer of the Astrophysics Jobs Rumor Mill
(2000-2005), Author of more than 250 papers in the field.

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