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Department of Astrophysics

Department of Astrophysics

How did the universe form?
What are the conditions for life?
What is the origin of stars and planets in the Milky Way galaxy?

Natural sciences rely on confronting mathematical models with experiments. Numerical simulations, often referred to as The Third Way, play a key role by bridging theory and experiment in a powerful way. Simulations enable the exploration of new ideas, they help validate the accuracy of theoretical predictions, and they can minimise cost by reducing the number of expensive experiments, and in many cases simulations are the only means of testing models or predicting the behavior of complex non-linear systems.
Natural sciences also relies on the systematic exploration of experimental data in order to extract meaning and aid their interpretation, or to discover new medicines or novel classifications. This approach relies heavily on statistical tools. Data science is now playing an active role in many fields of the natural sciences to promote innovative research and to explore experimental or simulation data.