The Great Cosmic Gamble: Making Galaxies from Nothing
Carlos Frenk (University of Durham)
Cosmology confronts some of the most fundamental questions in the whole of science. How and
when did our universe begin? What is it made of? How did it acquire its current
appearance? There has been enormous progress in the past few years towards answering these
questions. For example, recent observations have established that our universe contains an
unexpected mix of components that include not only ordinary atoms, but also exotic dark
matter and a new form of energy called dark energy. Gigantic surveys of galaxies tell us how
the universe is structured. Large supercomputer simulations recreate the evolution of the
universe and provide the means to relate processes occurring near the beginning of the
Universe with the structures seen today. A coherent picture of cosmic evolution, going back
to first instants after the Big Bang, is beginning to emerge. However, fundamental
mysteries, like the nature of the dark energy, remain unresolved.
