Save the dates: Invitation to 2018 Salam Distinguished Lectures Series, on 29, 30 and 31 January 2018

[ICTP Director]

_*ICTP 2018 Salam Distinguished Lecture Series: *_*"**Inflationary 
Cosmology: Is Our Universe Part of a Multiverse? ". *

*ICTP is pleased to announce that Professor Alan Guth, **will deliver 
this year’s Salam Distinguished Lecture Series on 29, 30 and 31 January 
in the Budinich Lecture Hall, ICTP, at 17:00.*

*Biosketch: *Alan Guth is the Victor F. Weisskopf Professor of Physics 
and a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology. Trained in particle theory at MIT, Guth held postdoc 
positions at Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, and SLAC (the Stanford Linear 
Accelerator Center) before returning to MIT as a faculty member in 1980. 
His work in cosmology began at Cornell, when fellow postdoc Henry Tye 
persuaded him to study the production of magnetic monopoles in the early 
universe. Using standard assumptions, they found that far too many would 
be produced. Continuing this work at SLAC, Guth discovered that the 
magnetic monopole glut could be avoided by a new proposal which he 
called the inflationary universe. Guth's honors include ICTP's Dirac 
Prize, the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, and the 2014 Kavli 
Prize in Astrophysics. Guth is still busy exploring the consequences of 
inflation. He has also written a popular-level book called "The 
Inflationary Universe: The Quest for a New Theory of Cosmic Origins" 
(Addison-Wesley/Perseus Books, 1997)
*
There will be 3 lectures, on 29, 30 and 31 January 2018, start time: 
17.00 hrs.*
*
Lecture I:* "Inflationary Cosmology: Is Our Universe Part of a 
Multiverse?" Abstract: Inflationary cosmology gives a plausible 
explanation for many observed features of the universe, including its 
uniformity, its mass density, and the patterns of the ripples that are 
observed in the cosmic microwave background. Beyond what we can observe, 
most versions of inflation imply that our universe is not unique, but is 
part of a possibly infinite multiverse. I will describe the workings of 
inflation, the evidence for inflation, and why I believe that the 
possibility of a multiverse should be taken seriously.
*Lecture II: *"Eternal Inflation and its Implications" Abstract: This 
lecture will further explore the connection between inflation and the 
multiverse. I will describe the mechanism of inflation in more detail, 
showing why most versions lead to eternal inflation: once inflation 
starts, it never completely stops, but instead the inflating region 
grows forever, producing "pocket universes" ad infinitum. Eternal 
inflation is in some ways very attractive, because, for example, it 
offers a possible explanation for why the energy density of the vacuum 
is so incredibly small. But it also leads to the "measure problem": how 
does one define probabilities in an infinite system in which any allowed 
event is expected to occur an infinite number of times?
*Lecture III: *"Infinite Phase Space and the Two-Headed Arrow of Time" 
Abstract: One of the unsolved mysteries of physics is the arrow of time: 
the laws of physics make no distinction between the future and the past, 
but in our experience they are entirely different. The arrow of time can 
be identified with the growth of entropy, but what caused the entropy to 
be lower in the past? I will describe a speculative picture which shows 
how an arrow of time can develop naturally, provided that the available 
phase space is infinite, even in a system with time-reversible laws of 
physics, and with no special initial conditions. I will also discuss the 
alternative possibility that the phase space available to the universe 
is finite, arguing that this assumption leads to serious cosmological 
problems.

*/The ICTP Salam Distinguished Lecture Series is sponsored by the Kuwait 
Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences./*

The lecture series will also be livestreamed from the ICTP website at: 
http://video.ictp.it/livestream

For more information, see also: http://indico.ictp.it/event/8289/

You are all warmly invited to attend. Light refreshments will be served 
after the lectures.

Kind regards,

Fernando Quevedo
Director