And it was Evening, and it was Morning, 13 Billion Years

Please make sure to join us as we close BDJ’s “Scientists in Synagogues” series with a "Big Bang" at a Friday night oneg.

Our own resident scientist-in-synagogue Dr. Alec Schramm will offer a Crash Course on the Big Bang, and Rav David will open the questions as to how a person of religious faith grapples with the very different stories told by the scientific community and the opening chapters of Bereshit (which Alec typically reads for us every year).

The scientific understanding of the origin and evolution of the universe has made remarkable progress, relying on physics at both the largest and smallest scales — from super clusters of galaxies to the quantum mechanics of subatomic particles.  And though many questions remain, the basic story of a 13.8 billion year old universe is well established by a century of theoretical work, astronomical observation, and terrestrial experiment.  Dr. Schramm will distill the basic framework, describe the supporting evidence, dispel common misunderstandings, and identify puzzles still to solve. Rav David Stein will guide the discussion around the possibility of simultaneously maintaining seemingly divergent truths.