How did the universe come to be? What is its ultimate fate? How do we know? We will explore the origin of the Big Bang theory and the evidence that supports it. We will also survey several theories on the "death" of the universe and discuss how new observations have shaped scientific speculation.

Edge detection forms the basis of many approaches to object recognition. We will introduce the fundamental concepts of edge detection, go through a simple approach, and discuss its strengths and weaknesses. We will also provide a brief overview of state-of-the-art edge detection techniques and provide a demonstration of their effectiveness. No prior programming experience necessary!