Scientific Colloquium
December 3, 2010
LAWRENCE
KRAUSS
Arizona State University
Foundation Professor and Director
of the Origins Initiative
"Cosmology as Science?
From Inflation to Eternity"
The last decade or two have
represented the golden age of observational cosmology, producing a
revolution in our picture of the Universe on its largest scales, and
perhaps also its smallest ones. I will argue that these recent
developments bring to the forefront some vexing questions about whether
various fundamental assumptions about the universe are in fact
falsifiable. I will focus on 3 issues: (1) “Proving” Inflation,
(2) Dark Energy and Anthropic Arguments, and (3) Cosmology of the far
future.