Simulating The Cosmos : Why The Universe Looks The Way It Does

Title: Simulating The Cosmos : Why The Universe Looks The Way It Does
Speaker: Romeel Davé, Professor and Chair of Physics at the University of Edinburgh

The quest for understanding our cosmic origins is as old as humanity. Today, astrophysicists are answering that question using the world's most powerful supercomputers. This talk will introduce the audience to the emerging field of cosmological simulations, which aim to recreate the Universe we see with our latest telescopes inside a computer. Doing so opens up new ways to explore the Universe, which have revolutionised how we think galaxies like our own Milky Way came to be. In this talk Romeel will cover the motivation, ingredients, and methodologies of cosmological simulations, and what it tells us about our cosmic origins.

Audience Takeaways:

- Putting the Universe in a computer is extremely complex, but you will learn that we are getting close to having all the ingredients in place.

- How cosmological simulations provide a platform for running numerical experiments to test models against the latest observations

- Why galaxies come in many shapes, sizes, and colours due to a fascinating interplay between nature and nurture within cosmic ecosystems.

Doors - 7:30pm - first come first served on seating

Intros - 7:50pm

Talk - 8pm

Q&A - 8:40pm