Speaker Name: Peter Behroozi
Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona

Our Universe contains many strange and puzzling aspects, including black holes, supernovae and galaxies. Astrophysicists attempt to explain these phenomena while facing three challenges: 1) only 0.000001% of the history of any luminous object is visible, 2) only 1% of the matter in the Universe generates light and 3) no experiments on astronomical scales are possible. Despite these challenges, the fact that the same rules of physics must apply to everything we see has meant that we have nonetheless made enormous strides in understanding the Universe. In combination with advances in machine learning, the prospect of reconstructing the remaining 99.999999% of our Universe’s history has become within reach in the next decade. This Begeman lecture reviews the challenges, progress and future of computational astronomy for the general public.