The Age of the Universe Wednesday November 24 Duke of Edinburgh Pub, Pyrmont Science in the Pub returns to its spiritual home in Pyrmont to ponder over how old the Universe actually is? We feature two eminent cosmologists who are leading efforts to determine this fundamental parameter for the Universe, and answer the big question of where are we really going. We have Dr Charley Lineweaver from UNSW (also star of SciPub II on God and the Big Bang) and Dr Brian Schmidt from the Research School for Astronomy & Astrophysics of the ANU.   Charley Lineweaver is a Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales. He studied undergraduate physics at Ludwig Maximillian Universitat, Germany and at Kyoto University, Japan. He obtained his PhD in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley on the cosmic microwave background (advisor George Smoot). After a postdoctoral fellowship at Strasbourg, France he came to UNSW in 1997. He also has an undergraduate degree in history and a masters degree in English. He has lived or travelled in 58 countries, speaks four languages and has played semi-professional soccer. He is co-convener with John Webb of a popular new UNSW course: ``Are We Alone?: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life''. His research involves using the latest cosmic microwave background data in combination with other data sets to try to answer the question: What is the Universe made of? and How old is the Universe? Occasionally his thoughts wander towards the question What does it all mean? The resulting aimlessness often inspires poetry: As I was drifting on the sea a lonely thought came to me, How old should the Universe be? My dad replied: ``infinity'' But dad, I simply can't agree... You can't recycle entropy ``You'll find a way my son, you'll see'' ``The answer is infinity'' Brian Schmidt Brian is a fellow at the Australian University's Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, formerly known by the much more romantic name of Mount Stromlo and Siding Spring Observatories, in Canberra. Brian graduated from the University of Arizona with degrees in Physics and Astronomy in 1989, before moving on to get his MA (1992) and PhD (1993) in Astronomy at Harvard University. After an 18 month postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Brian has spent the past 5 years in Canberra at the Australian National University. Brian's research has focussed on understanding the explosions of stars, known as supernovae, and using these objects to measure extragalactic distances. In 1995 he founded the High-Z SN Search Team, a group of 20 astronomers on 4 continents who have been using distant supernovae to measure the ultimate fate of the Universe. Last year, his team (in tandem with a competing team), published evidence that the Universe is being accelerated by some previously undetected form of Matter/Energy. Brian was attending a cosmology conference in Japan when we wrote this piece, so thought it appropriate to include Haiku for his poem: universe of Light will Expand forevermore into the Darkness `Science in the Pub'(TM) is an initiative of the Australian Science Communicators (NSW) and supported by the Australian Broadcasting Commission. SciPub has received two grants from the Science and Technology Awareness Program (an initiative of the Department of Industry, Science, Tourism), the most recent of which will be used for presenting Science in Your Pub during National Science Week 1999 in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne. For further information on `Science in the Pub' please contact Robyn Stutchbury on rstutch@ozemail.com.au of Peripatus Productions Pty Limited, 1 Carisbrook Street, Lane Cove 2066, Tel: 02 9427 6747, Fax: 02 9418 9605 Next Science in the Pub session ASC Xmas Party on December 15 in the Duke Of Edinburgh, to celebrate another year of SciPub!
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