News

Durham’s cosmic chefs serve up galaxies to order at the Royal Society

(4 July 2005)

What problem could possibly take seven months of non-stop number crunching by 640 computers working in unison, grinding out two trillion calculations per second to solve?

The answer is an attempt to address the biggest challenge facing cosmologists today – explaining how galaxies were made.

Researchers from the Institute of Computational Cosmology at Durham University now think that they have the problem cracked and their computer grown galaxies will be one of the ``star’’ attractions at this year’s Summer Science Exhibition at the Royal Society.

Durham’s cosmologists beat off intense competition from scientists from all over the UK to win the opportunity to showcase their work at the prestigious Summer Science event, which takes place at the Royal Society in London from 4th-7th July.

The Durham exhibit, called Cosmic Cookery: growing galaxies in a computer will explain how the researchers use super-fast computers to cook galaxies that look just like the real thing. The key, as always, is to follow the recipe. However, unlike terrestrial cookery, there is no Jamie Oliver to guide the way when it comes to making galaxies. The real work is to figure out the ingredients and cooking instructions from scratch.

The Institute for Computational Cosmology team, led by Dr. Takashi Okamoto, spent a lot of time producing unpalatable messes as they fined-tuned their galaxy formation theories. Eventually, after many attempts, they hit on the perfect mix and produced a beautiful spiral galaxy just like our own Milky Way.

As Dr. Vince Eke, a member of the team that made the breakthrough pointed out: ``It took us a long time to get the `gastro-physics’ right, but at least the washing-up is less of a chore with a computer simulation when things go wrong!’’

The centrepiece of the Cosmic Cookery exhibit is a 3D movie, developed in collaboration with Dr Nick Holliman and his team from Durham’s e-Science Research Laboratory. The movie takes the audience on a voyage through the solar system, passing Jupiter and Saturn, before leaving the Milky Way behind and exploring our local neighbourhood in the Universe.

Then, after winding the clock back to the Big Bang, they get to see a spiral galaxy grow, in an animation of the new Durham simulation. Visitors will be able to test the recipe for themselves, becoming cosmologists for the day and ‘baking’ their own galaxies on a computer and even crashing them together to see the impact these collisions have upon the appearance of galaxies.

After the Summer Science event, the aim is to integrate the Cosmic Cookery exhibit into the highly successful Outreach Programme run by the Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics at Durham, so that people across the North East also get a chance to learn the secrets of how galaxies were made.

Since the outreach project was launched in 2002, the co-ordinator, Dr. Pete Edwards, has organised a wide range of activities in which more than 6,000 local school pupils have taken part.

Dr. Carlton Baugh, one of the Cosmic Cookery exhibitors says: “The Summer Science event is a fantastic opportunity for us to show-off the research of the Institute for Computational Cosmology and motivates us to make our work more accessible to the public. A lot of people have put a huge amount of work into developing the exhibition materials and they should be used long after the Royal Society event is over. It would be great if we could find ways to give local people the chance to see it once we get back to Durham.”

ends

For more information contact:

Professor Carlos Frenk FRS
Institute for Computational Cosmology, Durham University
Mobile: 07808 726080 (from 4th July)
Tel: Direct line: 0191 334 3641
Secretary: 0191 334 3635
e-mail: c.s.frenk@durham.ac.uk

Dr. Carlton Baugh
Institute for Computational Cosmology,
Durham University.
Email: c.m.baugh@durham.ac.uk

Dr. P.J. Edwards,
Outreach co-ordinator,
Department of Physics, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE
Tel: 0191 334 3782
e-mail: p.j.edwards@durham.ac.uk

Notes to editors:

Images of the Cosmic Cookery exhibit can be downloaded from star-www.dur.ac.uk/~cmb/CosmicCookery

The Summer Science Exhibition takes place annually at the Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG. A total of 24 exhibits have been competitively selected from universities and companies throughout the UK. Each exhibit presents science, engineering or technology through visually engaging and interactive displays. The researchers themselves are on-hand to give insights into the science on show. More than 4,000 people are expected through the doors over the four days of the exhibition.

The Royal Society is an independent academy promoting the natural and applied sciences. Founded in 1660, the Society has three roles, as the UK academy of science, as a learned Society, and as a funding agency. It responds to individual demand with selection by merit, not by field.

For more information visit www.royalsoc.ac.uk or www.sc1.ac.uk

Einstein Year 2005

In 1905 Albert Einstein changed physics and the way we understand our world. One hundred Years on Einstein Year is celebrating the excitement and diversity of physics today. The aim of Einstein Year is ‘To enthuse young people, and those who influence them, about physics whilst building a sustainable increase in public awareness of physics and its role in society.’

Einstein Year is all about getting young people excited about physics, exploding the myth that physicists are white, middle-aged men with mad hair, and highlighting the huge contribution of contemporary physics to society.

See: http://www.einsteinyear.org for more details