The eighth Barkla Lecture was delivered by Professor Viatcheslav Mukhanov on April 24th. `Slava' Mukhanov is Professor of Theoretical Astroparticle Physics and Cosmology at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich and holds the Blaise Pascal Chair at ENS in Paris.
His talk was titled `Quantum Origin of the Universe Structure'. Many students and staff members from this University and also from other institutions like Liverpool John Moores and Lancaster University enjoyed a fascinating journey in the field of cosmology, ranging from the first observations of the cosmic microwave background to the latest precision measurements from the Planck satellite.
Professor Mukhanov's theoretical predictions are in stunning agreement with these recent precision observations and explain that the structure we see in the universe today has its origin in quantum fluctuations at very early times after the big bang.
After the lecture there was opportunity for informal discussions at the wine reception. For more information about the annual Barkla Lecture see http://www.maths.liv.ac.uk/TheorPhys/SEMINAR/colloquium.html