August 4, 2020, 7:00 p.m. EDT (convert to your time zone)

Harrison Winch

Eighty-five percent of the matter in our universe is made up of a mysterious invisible substance scientists call “dark matter”. Although we know some of its basic properties, we have no idea what dark matter actually is, or how it relates to the regular matter we know and love. What is this strange substance, and how can we find out? In this talk I will introduce some of the many theories proposed to explain dark matter, and demonstrate how astrophysicists work to constrain or “rule out” some of these theories. This approach stems from the importance of falsifiability in science, and I will explain how this philosophy of falsifiability guides current dark matter research. By the end of the talk, I hope to convince you that the important question to ask is not “what dark matter is”, but “what dark matter isn’t”.

Join us for this livestream on our YouTube page.