The writer Marcel Proust said: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” This quote also serves as a description of the Cluster of Excellence Quantum Universe. Its spokesperson, Prof. Dr. Erika Garutti, head of the research group at the Institute of Experimental Physics at the University of Hamburg, was a guest in Audimax 2 at TU Hamburg. The Proust quote was simultaneously the guiding motif of Prof. Garutti’s lecture. Similar to Proust’s description, Ms. Garutti took the audience on a journey through the most advanced insights into the origin of the universe, research on “dark matter,” and the fundamentals of the Cluster of Excellence . Of particular fascination were the results from the research group regarding how new knowledge can be gained, the methods and technical devices used for measurements, and the prospects for conducting physical evaluations of previously held assumptions through experiments. This not only opens new windows and measurement methods for observing the smallest particles but might even lead to the emergence of new theories.
From Bacterium to the Milky Way
Prof. Garutti provided a fascinating overview from the origin of the universe to the present from a research perspective. The core question and focus of her investigation, starting from the Big Bang, is the phenomenon of the universe’s inflation, for which she drew the breathtaking comparison of the expansion from the size of a bacterium to the size of the Milky Way within the blink of an eye. Current research seeks to measure and identify factors that are decisive for this expansion and for the structures themselves. Microwaves radiation and its relationship to temperature are particularly used for this purpose. However, dark matter and dark energy represent the largest portion of undetectable or yet unexamined “matter,” while until now only five percent of matter can be measured with our methods. Furthermore, Garutti addressed the phenomenon of matter and antimatter, which according to theory should be evenly distributed but cannot yet be reliably measured. After this introduction, the scientist reported on specific research activities, especially on dark matter. The Quantum Universe Cluster investigates elements that are “particle-like” and “wave-like,” i.e., patterns that behave like particles and waves. In the detector laboratory, Quantum Universe develops new “eyes” so that modern particle physics experiments can discover new physics. The discovery of the Higgs boson would not have been possible without highly precise detectors. The discovery of dark matter might be impossible without this new research.
The fascinating lecture on cutting-edge physical research sparked an extensive discussion among the guests. Erika Garutti presented herself as a physicist who clearly opposes speculations about the origin of the universe (“What was before?”) or metaphysical approaches: “What we can measure, we will measure. What we cannot measure is not part of our work.”
“From the Origin of the Universe to Today” was a lecture on the edge of scientific knowledge and how this boundary is continuously pushed further by scientists. That this research is located in the scientific metropolis of Hamburg is a fantastic development, was the consensus of the evening, which concluded with great applause for Prof. Garutti.
Further information
Further information can be found on the Garutti research group’s website.
