With a little imagination, answers to the questions most often pondered about the universe may be easy to understand -- even without any scientific background.

The first of an eight-lecture series titled "Penn State Lectures on Frontiers of Science" will take place next Saturday. The lectures are open to anyone wanting to learn about recent discoveries and theories in cosmology, the study of the structure and history of the universe.

"To me there is nothing quite as exciting as finding out about how the universe was created and what will become of it in the future," said Robin Tuluie, a postdoctoral fellow in astronomy and astrophysics and a researcher at the Center for Gravitational Physics and Geometry. Tuluie will present the lectures, sponsored by the center and the Eberly College of Science.

People like to ponder questions about the universe, Tuluie said, and the answers to many of those questions can be easily understood.

Abhay Ashtekar, director of the center and holder of the Eberly Family Chair in Physics, said one of the center's main goals is to host public lectures to popularize science.

"This is the first big thing we are doing," he said.

The idea behind many scientific theories is often not that difficult -- it's just that in order to prove the theory, complicated scientific language is often necessary, Tuluie said. His goal is to teach the main ideas of cosmology without using complicated mathematics.

Pierre Kerszberg, associate professor of philosophy, said often scientists' most interesting questions about the universe have little to do with mathematical formulas. In his class about the philosophy of science, Philosophy 221, he tells his students that an elementary understanding of science is all that is required to question the beginning of the universe.

People are able to express their intuitions about the universe without a scientific background, he said.

Tuluie will teach the Big Bang theory, the geometry and evolution of the universe and other theories about cosmology. He said he will use visual aids to explain some of the theories -- for example, he will use balloons to demonstrate the expansion of the universe.

"You have to be able to visualize things," Tuluie said, explaining that an imagination is important to understand theories of cosmology.

Ashtekar said he hopes this lecture series will be the stepping stone to reach out to local high school teachers. He added that one of the center's missions is to help improve science education, and he especially wants to help the local high schools.

Ashtekar was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, where those types of lectures have been successful in educating people about science for more than 20 years.

At Penn State, a different science topic will be chosen for the lectures each year that will always be taught by a postdoctoral fellow who is not yet a faculty member but is doing full-time research.

The lectures will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturdays in 101 Osmond.