Particle Physics

For more than 70 years, astronomers have had the uneasy suspicion that there was more to the universe than met the eye - much, much more. In the past five years, this suspicion has become a certainty. We now know for sure that normal matter and normal radiation account for only 4% of the density of the universe. One of the two biggest components, dark matter, may be finally be identified by new experiments coming on line next year. I\'ll summarise the long quest to identify dark matter and our prospects for finally achieving this goal in the next two years.

This talk discusses Einstein\'s special and general theories of relativity in a simple manner. Some simple mathematical arguments are included. This leads to a brief description of Loop Quantum Gravity - one of the most popular way of trying to describe gravity using the ideas of quantum mechanics. In addition, the Standard model of particle physics, which describes all known particles and their (non-gravitational) interactions is explained. We conclude with a description of some recent research which may bring the Standard Model and Loop Quantum Gravity together into a single theory.

Modern motivations for extra spacetime dimensions will be presented, in particular the surprising AdS/CFT connection to particle compositeness. It will be shown how highly curved, "warped", extra-dimensional geometries can naturally address several puzzles of fundamental physics, including the weakness of gravity, particle mass hierarchies, dark matter, and supersymmetry breaking. The possibility of direct discovery of warped dimensions at particle colliders such as the CERN Large Hadron Collider will be discussed. Some current questions in warped cosmology will also be introduced.

Some of the speculations on new physics, beyond what is in the standard model are reviewed. Particular attention is paid to ideas that try to address the hierarchy puzzle, i.e., why is the weak scale so much smaller than the Planck scale. These new theories will be tested at the large hadron collider in the near future.

With a cosmic flight simulator, we'll take a scenic journey through space and time. After exploring our local Galactic neighborhood, we'll travel back 13.7 billion years to explore the Big Bang itself and how state-of-the-art measurements are transforming our understanding of our cosmic origin and ultimate fate. We then turn to the question of whether this can all be described purely mathematically, and discuss implications ranging from standard physics topics like symmetries, irreducible representations, units, free parameters and initial conditions to broader issues like parallel universes, simulations and and Goedel incompleteness.