Organizers: Nima Arkani-Hamed; Igor Klebanov; Jean-Luc Lehners; David Spergel; Paul Steinhardt; Matt Strassler; and Herman Verlinde

The PCTS Program: The Big Bang and Beyond is designed to identify and explore the forefront issues concerning the events surrounding the big bang and how they relate to both cosmological observations and particle accelerator experiments.The program consists of a series of public lectures plus "microsymposia" followed by Group Meetings on Mondays 2-4pm; Wednesdays 12:30-3pm (lunch included); and (when there is not a microsymposium) on Fridays 10:30-12am (coffee/snack included). Updates and further
information can be found at pcts.princeton.edu/pcts/bigbang. There is no cost but participants should register at this site so that food and parking can be arranged. The focus topics for theMicrosymposia & Group Meetings and the committed speakers thus far are given below:

September 25-26,2008: Frontiers of Observational Cosmology (two full days)

Special PCTS/Physics Colloquium: Eichiro Komatsu (Texas)
Committed Speakers: A. Reiss (STSCI); A. Vikhlinin (Harvard); G. Bernstein (Penn); Eisenstein (Arizona); Page (Princeton); K. Smith (Cambridge); N. Dalal (CITA), M. Zaldarriaga (Harvard)

October 2-3, 2008: Branes, Strings and Inflation (Th aft+ F)

Special PCTS/Physics Colloquium: Shamut Kachru (Stanford)
Committed Speakers: C. Burgess (McMaster), E. Silverstein (Stanford), D. Wesley (Cambridge), H. Tye (Cornell), V. Mukhanov (Munich), G. Shiu
(Wisconsin)

October 16-17, 2008: Forefronts of LHC Physics (two full days)

Nov. 6-7, 2008: Cyclic and Bouncing Universes (Th eve+ F)

• Committed Speakers: J. Khoury (Perimeter); P. Creminelli (ICTP), R. Brandenberger (McGill); G. Veneziano (CERN)
• Evnin Public Lecture, Science & Technology Council (Th. eve):Neil Turok (Cambridge, Perimeter)
   

Nov. 20-21, 2008: String Landscape (Th eve+ F)

• Vanuxem Public Lecture (Th. Eve): Leonard Susskind

Dec. 4-5, 2008: Cosmic Singularities (Th aft+ F)

• Special PCTS/Physics Colloquium: James Hartle, UCSB on Dec. 4

Feb. 12, 2009: Eternal Inflation (Th aft + F)

• Sackler Lecture in Astrophysics (Th. aft.) : Alan Guth Committed Speakers: TBA