Physics Club: Daisuke Nagai, Yale University, “Computational Cosmology: New Frontier of Physics and Astronomy in the Era of Big Data”

We live in a remarkable era. We can directly see how our universe has evolved over time in the past 13.8 billion years after the Big Bang. Today, we use astronomical observations and computer simulations in combination to study what our universe is made of and how it began and evolved over the cosmic time. In this talk, I will describe the state of affairs on the origin, composition, and evolution of the universe, with highlights on the role of computational modeling in developing quantitative models based on fundamental physical principles, facilitating interpretations of ever-growing astronomical datasets, and addressing some of the most confounding questions at the intersection of physics and astronomy in the era of big data.