Cosmic Origin of the Elements
Department of Physics and Astronomy
Texas A&M University - Commerce
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
3:30 p.m., Room 104, Physics Building
Refreshments
3:15 p.m., Room 104
ABSTRACT: Eighty years of nuclear science has allowed us to infer the origin of the chemical elements out of which our bodies and the Earth are made. We now believe that the lightest elements were created in nuclear reactions in the first three minutes after the big bang, and all the rest were made in nuclear reactions inside the stars and distributed throughout interstellar space via stellar winds and giant stellar explosions. I will show how a new generation of theoretical developments and experiments can shed light on the complex nuclear processes that control the evolution of stars and stellar
explosions.