Scientists have long called the expanding universe “the Big Bang,” but the term is confusing. Many people think the Big Bang is the name of the moment of the creation of the universe, but it’s really just the expanding phase. In this episode of Subatomic Stories, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln explains some of the speculative ideas that have been proposed about the actual and literal moment of creation.

The term “Big Bang” is often badly misunderstood. In this 11-minute video, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln tries to dispel some common misconceptions about the first moments of the cosmos.

Albert Einstein spent the last decades of his life trying to work out a theory that would explain all known phenomena. He failed, but his vision has been pursued by generations of researchers, and there have been many popular science books and articles that imply that such a theory could be right around the corner. In this talk, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln explains the current status in this timeless quest and give the audience a sense of the prospects for completing Einstein’s dream.

The field of particle physics searches to find the explanation for the universe, focusing on the fundamental building blocks and most basic force that governs them. Our current best theory of the subatomic world is the Standard Model, which invokes quarks and leptons to build the cosmos. In this 13-minute episode of Subatomic Stories, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln explores the idea that quarks and leptons might not be the final story.

Einstein’s equation E = mc²and the theory of the Big Bang are both generally accepted physics theories, and yet, between them, they make an unphysical prediction. They predict that matter and antimatter should be observed in equal quantities. Yet the universe is made only of matter. Why is that? In this 11-minute episode of Subatomic Stories, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln explains what is going on.

Mysteries abound in the universe, including the universe’s ultimate fate. In this episode of Subatomic Stories, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln talks about the observation of a new form of energy called dark energy, which will determine the future of the cosmos.

The existence or nonexistence of dark matter is a pressing and modern problem in physics. Something makes galaxies spin too fast, but nobody knows just what. In this episode of Subatomic Stories, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln talks about the ongoing debate and points to two observations that make scientists more confident that dark matter is a real thing.

We know very little about what happened in the first seconds after the Big Bang. In this public lecture, author and Fermilab physicist Dan Hooper examines how physicists are using the Large Hadron Collider and other experiments to re-create the conditions of the Big Bang and to address mysteries such as how our universe came to contain so much matter and so little antimatter.

There are mysteries in the cosmos that general relativity can’t explain, such as how galaxies rotate and how clusters of galaxies move. Scientists have ideas as to possible explanations. In this 13-minute episode of Subatomic Stories, Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln lists some of the most pressing mysteries.

The new Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center, based at Fermilab and comprising 20 partner institutions, is one of five national centers to bring about transformational advances in quantum information science as a part of the U.S. National Quantum Initiative. SQMS will build and deploy a beyond-state-of-the-art quantum computer based on superconducting technologies. The center will also develop new quantum sensors, which could lead to the discovery of the nature of dark matter and other elusive subatomic particles.