A-level Physics students visited to UCLAN to listen Professor Andrew Pontzen’s talk titled ‘The Universe in a Box’. This was a fascinating talk on the topic of mathematical simulations and their use in the science of cosmology.

The talk covered a brief history of scientific attempts to model and predict complex systems, as well as the transformative effect of computing on the field in the 1950s, and the current state of attempts to simulate the development of the Universe.

The students learned how measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation provide scientists with a set of initial conditions which they can work from before they adjust a dizzying range of parameters to try and figure out why the Universe has developed as it has.

Professor Pontzen took questions at the end of his talk and Westholme students were able to quiz him about the role Dark Matter plays in his simulations as well as his thoughts on how quantum physics might have shaped the early Universe.

The Physics Department at Westholme would like to thank the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute at UCLAN yet another excellent lecture.