If space is the final frontier, then exploring the vastness of the universe doesn’t always require zooming at warp speed in a starship.
There’s a lot we can figure out about the mysteries of the cosmos using computer power. From the probing of the universe’s birth, the formation of galaxies, to defining the nature of dark matter and dark energy—computer simulations can tell us a lot.
Computer simulations have become a powerful tool in cosmology, allowing researchers to recreate and explore the complex and intricate processes that shape our universe. This allows centuries-old ideas about the nature of space and time to be tested for the first time.
Guest: Andrew Pontzen is a cosmologist and author of the book The Universe in a Box: Simulations and the Quest to Code the Cosmos. Dr. Pontzen is a professor at University College London where simulations play a major part of his research that spans cosmology, physics, and computation. He’s the co-director of UCL’s Cosmoparticle Initiative and has been featured as an expert on on PBS’s NOVA and the Discovery Channel’s "How the Universe Works."
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*This interview will be recorded on Monday, July 10.
