StarTalk💫

Join us next Friday for our first StarTalk of the academic year with Professor Michael Reid! Come learn all about the Big Bang; everyone is welcome! 💫

📅 September 18th, 2026 ⏰ 7:00–8:00 pm 📍 BA 1220 (Bahen Centre for Information Technology), 40 St. George Street

Title: Understanding the Big Bang

Abstract: The Big Bang is both one of the best-tested ideas in all of science yet one of the trickiest to understand. The idea seems simple enough: everything starts all compressed together and then explodes to make a universe. But most of the analogies used to understand the Big Bang encode subtle misconceptions. Those misconceptions can make the theory seem to say things it doesn’t, or to collapse into absurdity. In this interactive talk, we’ll walk through some of the trickiest aspects of the idea and try to replace shaky analogies with clear understanding.

Bio: Dr. Michael Reid is an Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, in the David A. Dunlap Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. His work focuses on making complex astronomical topics accessible to everyone. He received his PhD from McMaster University, studying how huge clouds of gas and dust turn into stars.