Description
Brian Keating is a professor of physics at the Center for Astrophysics & Space Sciences (CASS) in the Department of Physics at the University of California, San Diego. He is a public speaker, inventor, and an expert in the study of the universe?s oldest light, the cosmic microwave background (CMB), using it to learn about the origin and evolution of the universe.
Keating is a pioneer in the search for the earliest physical evidence of the inflationary epoch, the theorized period of expansion of space in the early universe directly after the Big Bang. Physicists predict that this evidence will reveal itself as a particular pattern in the way CMB light is polarized; this pattern is referred to as a B-mode pattern.
Keating co-leads two international experiments searching for B-modes. One is called POLARBEAR and the other is an expansion of the POLARBEAR project now underway called the Simons Array. Both are situated in northern Chile.
In a Times of San Diego news story in June 2015, Keating said: ?The Simons Array represents the boldest, most ambitious and most sensitive instrument ever designed to fully mine the cosmic microwave background of its secrets. With the Simons Array, we have a chance to glimpse the universe in its infancy.?
On May 12, 2016, Keating was named Director of the Simons Observatory, a $45 million Cosmic Microwave Background experiment co-located near the POLARBEAR/Simons Array and ACT telescopes in northern Chile.
Keating is also a member of the BICEP2 collaboration at the South Pole also searching for B-modes; and he conceived the first B-mode observing campaign in history, called BICEP (Background Imaging of Extragalactic Polarization), back in 2001.
Links for additional information:
- Watch Brian Keating's TEDx talk "Going to the ends of the Earth to discover the beginnings of time" - https://youtu.be/T22s4jCZ4Ho
- UCSD profile - http://bkeating.physics.ucsd.edu
- Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Keating
This auction provides a unique opportunity for you and a guest to have lunch with Dr. Keating at the UCSD campus.