Recipes for the Universe

As part of the World Year of Physics, the Physics Section of the University of Geneva is organising a series of conferences for the uninitiated.

Each of the conferences will begin with a demonstration in the auditorium of the detection of cosmic rays and, in collaboration with Professor E. Ellberger of the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève, of how these signals from the farthest reaches of the Universe can be used to create "cosmic music".

The third conference in the series, "How to build a universe?", will take place on Tuesday 15 March 2005 and the speaker will be the CERN theoretical physicist, John Ellis.

A tiny number of elementary particles are responsible for the very diverse universe that surrounds us. These basic building blocks of matter interact by exchanging photons and other similar particles. After summing up what we know about these fundamental building blocks, their role in the history of the universe will be discussed. Where does matter come from? Where do the structures that surround us, such as galaxies, come from? Is there such a thing as hidden matter? Why is the universe so large and so old? The elementary particles should give us the answers.