Simulating the Cosmos

Simulating the Cosmos is a behind-the-scenes look into one of the hottest and fastest-moving areas of astrophysics today: simulations of cosmology and galaxy formation, which illustrate how everything we see in the universe arose out of the primordial soup of the Big Bang.

Leading cosmologist Romeel Davé guides you through the trials and tribulations of what it takes to put the universe into a computer, the amazing new insights revealed by cosmological simulations, and the many mysteries yet to be solved.

This rollicking and extraordinary journey is a rare glimpse into science in action, showing how cosmologists are using the laws of physics and supercomputers to uncover the secrets of why the universe looks the way it does.

'Building imaginary universes in a supercomputer has been a great success of modern astronomy. Here we have one of the world's masters of this numerical alchemy giving us both the science and the personal story behind our current understanding of how galaxies like the Milky Way came to exist.' — John Peacock, University of Edinburgh, Royal Society, and winner of the Shaw Prize

Simulating the Cosmos explains beautifully and authoritatively how astrophysicists simulate the formation and evolution of galaxies in the expanding universe, and how we test our theories by comparing simulations with observations.' — Joel Primack, University of California, Santa Cruz, and recipient of the American Physical Society Lilienfeld Prize 2020