Cosmological Emergence Consortium

Emergence at all scales

What are the building blocks of space, time and matter? Can we understand the mind-boggling variation in properties emerging when Lego is played with billions of fundamental particles, atoms, molecules and little chunks of materials? These questions are amongst the deepest, and the scientists asking them do research into emergence. We want to understand emergence at all scales: from the terribly tiny to the cosmologically colossal. Our goal is the discovery of the general laws of emergence, written in the language of mathematics. We are joined on this journey spanning sixty-orders of magnitude by citizen-scientists, artists, school-kids, and cool cocktail-mixologists.

NWA ORC funding allocated by NWO: 7.1 million euro

Consortium: Freudenthal Institute, ICLON, IMC Weekendschool, Kyiv Academic University, New Scientist NL, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Stichting InScience, Stichting Paradiso Amsterdam, Technische Universiteit Delft, Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, The Science and Cocktails Foundation (Denemarken), Universiteit Leiden, Universiteit Utrecht, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, AMOLF, CBS, Nikhef.

WP5: Gravity and dark structure

UPAC is involved in work package 5.1, together with the Universities of Amsterdam and Groningen: Emergence of Time and Laws in Quantum Cosmology

Hosting institution: UvA

PhD candidate: see job advertisement

Leads: Erik Verlinde, Sebastian de Haro (UvA/philosophy/physics)

Collaborators: Jeroen van Dongen (UvA/philosophy/history), Niels Martens (UU/philosophy), Edwin Valentijn (RUG/astronomy).