How Big is the Universe? - Ignacio Reyes Raffo (PhD)

How Big is the Universe?

Of course, we don’t know.

Despite our advancements, the true scale of the cosmos remains one of our most profound mysteries.

Yet, humanity has learned to measure astonishingly large distances by combining the rigor of observation, the laws of physics, and the reach of our imagination.

This talk tells the story of how our cosmic perspective expanded - not through a straight line of progress, but through fierce debates, significant mistakes, and accidental discoveries. We will trace the journey of how we moved beyond our planet to the edges of what is visible, exploring the methods we use to map the unmappable.

It forces us to ask: if the Universe is expanding, what exactly is it expanding into?

How do we measure the distance to a star billions of light-years away without ever leaving our own orbit?

And does the concept of "size" even apply to a system that might be infinite?

Join us as we discuss how we came to understand the structure of the observable Universe we inhabit, and what remains hidden beyond our current horizon.

About the speaker

Ignacio Reyes is a theoretical physicist and the CEO and Co-founder of Dunedain Space, a Noordwijk-based startup supported by the ESA Phi-Lab Netherlands. The company develops optical tracking technologies to monitor objects in orbit - from near-Earth to deep space - including those that are fully dark.

Ignacio holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Würzburg and has held postdoctoral research positions at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and the University of Amsterdam. His research has focused on Quantum Field Theory, specifically the study of Black Holes and Quantum Information.

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