NASA; ESA; G. Illingworth, D. Magee, P. Oesch, University of California, Santa Cruz; R. Bouwens, Leiden University; and HUDF09 Team

Spatial correlations between the positions of galaxies, about 5,500 of which can be seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image, can reveal cosmological history.

Cosmic Triangles Open a Window to the Origin of Time

“Paleontologists infer the existence of dinosaurs to give a rational accounting of strange patterns of bones,” said Nima Arkani-Hamed, a physicist and cosmologist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. “We look at patterns in space today, and we infer a cosmological history in order to explain them.”

In Quanta Magazine, Natalie Wolchover, IAS Director's Visitor (2017), writes about the latest cutting-edge research by Arkani-Hamed, which looks at the hidden patterns exposed by the fundamental symmetries of the universe and suggests a new mathematical framework for explaining time.

Wolchover reports that over the summer, Arkani-Hamed coauthored with Daniel Baumann, Member (2009–11) in the School of Natural Sciences, and two collaborators, a detailed paper that "bootstraps" time and treats it as emergent rather than fundamental. Wolchover also describes how Arkani-Hamed collaborated with Juan Maldacena, Carl P. Feinberg Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, to arrive at a simpler understanding of the dynamics of cosmic inflation.