Bringing the Cosmos to the Lab: Explaining via Analogue Gravity Quantum Simulators & How can we learn about cosmological systems in the lab?

Our team seeks to understand how we can learn about distant inaccessible systems—such as black holes or events in the early universe—by studying systems in the lab that can replicate some of the behaviour of these systems. We would like to use lab-based simulators to extend our knowledge beyond what we can calculate and to transfer that knowledge to inform our understanding of black holes and the early universe. However, simulators are not exact replicas of the systems that we are interested in and we need to confront the question of how reliable the inferences drawn from our simulators are and what evidence we can bring to bear to increase their reliability.

Since we cannot test our simulators against observation from inaccessible systems in a straightforward way, we confront philosophical questions about the role of criteria such as simplicity, similarity, and explanatory power in science when reasoning from simulators to distant systems. This project brings together philosophical work on the methodology of science and scientific work on gravity simulators to determine the extent to which we can trust conclusions drawn from simulators.

One of the most exiting aspects of this work is that it brings together philosophy and science in a way that used to be seen in early modern science but that is unusual in contemporary work. The question that we tackle cannot be answered by either discipline alone and shows that integrated science and philosophy of the kind historically seen in natural philosophy remains relevant today.

Gravity Laboratory

Art Lab