Physical cosmology is a branch of cosmology concerned with the study of cosmological models. A cosmological model, or simply cosmology, provides a description of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and allows study of fundamental questions about its origin, structure, evolution, and ultimate fate. Cosmology as a science originated with the Copernican principle, which implies that celestial bodies obey identical physical laws to those on Earth, and Newtonian mechanics, which first allowed those physical laws to be understood.
Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions or motions in space–what they are, rather than where they are", which is studied in celestial mechanics.
Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, is a British cosmologist and astrophysicist. He is the fifteenth Astronomer Royal, appointed in 1995, and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 2004 to 2012 and President of the Royal Society between 2005 and 2010. He has received various physics awards including the Wolf Prize in Physics in 2024 for fundamental contributions to high-energy astrophysics, galaxies and structure formation, and cosmology.
John David Barrow was an English cosmologist, theoretical physicist, and mathematician. He served as Gresham Professor of Geometry at Gresham College from 2008 to 2011. Barrow was also a writer of popular science and an amateur playwright.
Phillip James Edwin Peebles is a Canadian-American astrophysicist, astronomer, and theoretical cosmologist who was Albert Einstein Professor in Science, emeritus, at Princeton University. He is widely regarded as one of the world's leading theoretical cosmologists in the period since 1970, with major theoretical contributions to primordial nucleosynthesis, dark matter, the cosmic microwave background, and structure formation.
Michael S. Turner is an American theoretical cosmologist who coined the term dark energy in 1998. He is the Rauner Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Chicago, having previously served as the Bruce V. & Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor, and as the assistant director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences for the US National Science Foundation.
Leon Mestel was a British-Australian astronomer and astrophysicist and Emeritus Professor at the University of Sussex. His research interests were in the areas of star formation and structure, especially stellar magnetism and astrophysical magnetohydrodynamics. He was awarded both the Eddington Medal (1993) and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. Following his retirement, he wrote several obituaries and biographical articles on physicists and astrophysicists.
Andrew R. Liddle is a Principal Investigator at the University of Lisbon. From 2018 to 2020 he was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Waterloo. From 2013 to 2017 he was Professor of astrophysics at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh. Publications include books and over 260 papers. He is a theoretical cosmologist and is interested in understanding the properties of the Universe and how these relate to fundamental physical laws.
Carlos Silvestre Frenk is a Mexican-British cosmologist. Frenk graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the University of Cambridge and spent his early research career in the United States, before settling permanently in the United Kingdom. He joined the Durham University Department of Physics in 1986 and since 2001 has served as the Ogden Professor of Fundamental Physics at Durham University.
Uroš Seljak is a Slovenian cosmologist and a professor of astronomy and physics at University of California, Berkeley. He is particularly well-known for his research in cosmology and approximate Bayesian statistical methods.
The Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC) is a research institute at Durham University, England. It was founded in November 2002 as part of the Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics, which also includes the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology (IPPP). The ICC's primary mission is to advance fundamental knowledge in cosmology. Topics of active research include: the nature of dark matter and dark energy, the evolution of cosmic structure, the formation of galaxies, and the determination of fundamental parameters.
John Richard Bond, also known as J. Richard Bond, is a Canadian astrophysicist and cosmologist.
Richard Battye is a cosmologist, theoretical physicist and former first-class cricketer. He is currently a Professor of Cosmology at the University of Manchester and has been the associate director (science) in the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics since 2015.
Rachel Bean is a cosmologist, theoretical astrophysicist, professor of astronomy, and senior associate dean for math and science at the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University.
Nicholas Kaiser was a British cosmologist. He is the son of Thomas Reeve Kaiser.
Varun Bhisham Sahni is an Indian theoretical physicist, astrophysicist and a Distinguished Professor at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics. Known for his research on cosmology, Sahni is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies viz. Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy and National Academy of Sciences, India. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to physical sciences in 2000.
Renée Hložek is a South African cosmologist, Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, and an Azrieli Global Scholar within the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. She studies the cosmic microwave background, Type Ia supernova and baryon acoustic oscillations. She was named a Sloan Research Fellow in 2020, and received the Rutherford Memorial Medal from the Royal Society of Canada. Hložek identifies as bisexual.
Raul Jimenez Tellado, known professionally as Raul Jimenez, is a cosmologist and theoretical physicist and currently the ICREA Professor of Cosmology at the University of Barcelona. His research interests include the origin and evolution of the Universe, large-scale structure, dark matter, dark energy, inflation, the cosmic microwave background, statistics and Bayesian inference.
Jenny Wagner is a German physicist, cosmologist, and book author.
Adrienne Lynn Erickcek is an American theoretical cosmologist whose research aims at understanding cosmic inflation, dark matter, dark energy and chameleon particles, and alternatives to general relativity such as f(R) gravity. She is an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
