P. James E. Peebles, Princeton University

Public Plenary Talk
CASCA Public Lecture in Astronomy and Herzberg Memorial Lecture
Sunday, June 13, 2004 at 7 pm Delta Hotel Winnipeg

Cosmic Picture Show: Images from Astronomy
Some of the astronomical images I will present are meant to illustrate what we know about the large-scale nature of the world around us and how we have gone about discovering it; others are chosen just because they're pretty. Some of the images are close to what you can see with a pair of binoculars; others are numerical representations of what you would `see' if you had Superman's X-ray eyes, or eyes sensitive to radio waves or neutrinos. I'll show historical examples of the learning process in astronomy, both good -- Hubble's classification of the galaxies -- and not so good -- Lowell's idea that he was seeing canals on Mars -- and illustrations drawn from current debates about what is happening on scales ranging from black holes in the centers of galaxies to the expansion of the universe.

A reception follows which is open to all who attend the talk.