Johanna Nagy, Warren G. Rupp Assistant          Professor of Physics

See CWRU Newsroom: Meet a Researcher Trying to See the Birth of the Universe

Area of focus: Cosmology: decoding the secrets of the origin of the universe and how it has changed over time
 

Johanna Nagy hopes to “see” the birth of the universe by mapping the fossil light that stamped the imprint of its earliest second. She studies the cosmic microwave background (CMB), leftover radiation from the universe’s fiery birth, cooled over billions of years to just above absolute zero.

The CMB records the time when protons and neutrons came together to form the first hydrogen atoms, about 380,000 years after the universe’s birth. Tiny variations in the temperature of the CMB correspond to the seeds of what became the large-scale structure of the universe.

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