Cosmology at UW Madison
The field of cosmology attempts to answer very big questions about our universe: What were the earliest moments of the universe like? How did the early universe evolve into the large-scale structure of matter we observe today and how will it continue to evolve in the future?
In the universe today, we observe galaxy clusters and superclusters, millions of light-years across, containing massive amounts of matter in the form of planets, black holes, neutron stars, brown dwarfs, and other compact objects. However, in its earliest stages, the universe was an almost homogeneous field of particles interacting at tremendously high energies.
Cosmology thus probes both the highest energies and the lowest energies in nature (largest distances). At UW Madison we have a number of cosmologists that work on different aspect of this research, from building detectors to analyzing data to building theoretical models of the early universe. We are working together towards the common goal of understanding the universe and its fundamental physical laws and processes.