Cosmology or Complex Systems Physics

This month, I finished “On the Origin of Time: Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory” by Thomas Hertog. It’s a mixture of anecdotes by the author about Stephen Hawking and an overview of the development of their top-down approach to cosmology. Hertog was a graduate student under the supervision of Hawking. The book was very engaging, although sometimes hard to understand, probably due to a language barrier, as I read the book in English and not in my mother tongue, German.

As I already mentioned in my last post, my interests in physics are complex systems physics and cosmology. It is hard for me to decide which area to focus on. I hope to find an overlapping problem in these two areas of physics.

Why focus on Cosmology?

When I decided to study physics, my only goal was to get into cosmology and astrophysics. It is the most interesting field and, for me, the pinnacle of physics. Understanding the universe is understanding everything. The idea of these massive structures, like stars and black holes, that are so violently floating in space, has something very soothing to it. Hertog spoke in his book about an underlying Quantumstructure out of which space and time could emerge. It is a fascinating theory that I am intrigued to learn more about. In an Interview with Brian Green, Stephen Wolfram formulated similar ideas. He also thinks about an underlying structure with simple rules, giving rise to things like gravity.

I don’t know if I’m good enough to really make any progress in this field. It’s probably too soon to tell, as I’m only in my second year of my bachelor’s, and, like always, getting ahead of myself.

Why focus on Complex Systems Physics

Complex Systems Physics is also a great research area because it does not focus on a particular field. It has many different applications, which, for someone who only needs to see a five-minute video about a science topic to get excited, is a very nice extra. I don’t know if I will end up in academics or industry. I think with complex systems, I have a better chance of getting a job in the industry. Companies dabbling in topics like artificial intelligence, weather forecasting, finance, etc., are searching for people with a good understanding of complex systems.

I wrote an email to Stephen Strogatz (a lot of Stephens out there) asking him about possible research areas in the trenches of these two. I was flabbergasted when he actually wrote back. He gave me the tip about early-universe structure formation and network and statistical approaches to large-scale structure, and nonlinear phenomena in gravitational systems. Don’t know what that means yet, but I hope I will find a supervisor who is eager to help me explore these topics and break them down into a suitable bachelor’s thesis. I am interested in where my studies in physics will lead me.