We live on a Newtonian world in an Einsteinian universe. Our observations tell us that the universe started in what we call a Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since. What is truly staggering is that our understandings of the largest and smallest come together into something called the Standard Model. Several numbers that characterize the universe, the values of several physical constants, have to be exactly what they are or else stars do not evolve. And, if stars do not evolve, neither do we. This talk is about the cosmology we have and the perhaps very unusual universe it leads us to think we are in.
Dr. Bass is Professor Emeritus of Optics at CREOL, the College of Optics & Photonics. From December 1987 until December 1992 he served as UCF's Vice President for Research. Dr. Bass received his B.S. in Physics from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1960 and his M.S. in 1962 and his Ph. D. in 1964 in Physics from the University of Michigan. He is a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Optical Society of America (OSA) and the Laser Institute of America (LIA). He was elected a Foreign Member of the Russian National Academy of Engineering Science in 1994. Is the 2014 recipient of the R. W. Wood Prize of the Optical Society of America and a 2013 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.
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