From the Biggest Things to the Biggest Bang

Assuming that you are really (really) strong, what are the biggest objects in the Universe that hold together enough that you could throw them? What are they made of and why are they so big? In this talk, I will show how studies of the large scale structure of the Universe enable us to reconstruct the initial conditions at the Big-Bang and test the fundamental laws of physics. Among other things, scientist are trying to test one of the most provocative idea of modern physics: the possibility that these huge "things" actually originated from quantum fluctuations smaller than anything we have ever detected!

Louis Leblond was raised in Quebec City. He received his B.Sc from Université Laval (2001) and his Ph.D from Cornell University (2006). He then held a postdoctoral fellowship at Texas A&M University before coming to the Perimeter Institute in 2009 as a postdoctoral fellow. His research interests include cosmology, elementary particle physics and theories of quantum gravity such as string theory.