What are the limits to our knowledge of the universe?
Prof. Bryan Edward Penprase
(Soka University of America)
How have humans mapped their world to the edges of the horizon, the skies and the nearby universe over preceding centuries? What limits our knowledge today? In this talk, we will explore the development of celestial navigation, star maps, and the first efforts to determine the three dimensional structure of our nearby universe. The increasing accuracy of maps of the earth and sky were followed by the first efforts to measure the distances to stars and the structure of the Milky Way. We will explore how these efforts have led to our modern nearly complete mapping of the observable universe - on the scales of both large and small. Even with our modern scientific instruments, we experience fundamental limits to our knowledge of the universe, and these limits provide for interesting speculation for societies ancient and modern. We provide a brief review of how conceptions of multiverses, cosmologies and ideas about “empty” space have been discussed in ancient and modern cultures around the world.
video chat