Thinking Beyond February 2025- Before the Big Bang

The “Thinking Beyond” webinar series features renowned physicists Paul Davies, Sara Walker and Maulik Parikh from the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University and will address a big question/topic in science. This month, Justin Khoury will present the topic and will be joined by Paul Davies and Maulik Parikh.

February's webinar- Before the Big Bang

We will explore the possibility that our universe existed before the big bang. In this picture, the big bang would not mark the beginning of time, but rather a bridge between an earlier phase of contraction and the current phase of expansion. We will mention the theoretical challenges that this idea presents, and the possible observational implications in our present universe.

Dr. Khoury is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. His research lies at the interface of theoretical cosmology and particle physics, investigating new models of dark matter and dark energy as well as theories of the very early universe. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2002, followed by postdoctoral positions at Columbia University and MIT. He was a faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, before joining the faculty at U. Penn in 2009. He has been awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship, an NSF CAREER Award, the 2017 Buchalter Cosmology Prize, and the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching.