On November 19th, Dr Roberto Trotta from Imperial College London, presented to students at The London Oratory School.
Dr Roberto Trotta is a theoretical cosmologist in the Astrophysics Group in the Physics Department at Imperial College London. His research interests focus on the analysis and interpretation of cosmological data sets, in particular in relation with dark matter and dark energy. He is also interested in the early Universe and in developing connections between cosmology and particle physics.
Dr Trotta presented ‘The Dark Side of the Universe’ to students from The London Oratory School. Through his talk, he discussed the beginnings of the universe and its evolution over time. He discussed gravity’s role in the moulding of our universe and how visible matter isn’t enough to explain what we see, using examples like Einstein rings; leading us to dark matter, how we know it’s there, how its distributed and how it affected the universe’s evolution. He used a long string as a visual representation of the timeline of our universe.
Throughout his talk, Dr Trotta kept the audience involved; asking audience members about their understandings of the universes origins.
Around 70 students attended Dr Trotta’s talk and were invited to put their questions to him after his presentation. The talk prompted many questions, such as how the acceleration of the universe’s expansion compares with the speed of light and why visible matter doesn’t form huge filaments in space like dark matter does.
Following the event, one of the attendees said: “I thought the speaker was clear and to the point, which I am grateful for, as it aided my understanding in this area of physics.”