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Studierende sitzt am Arbeitsplatz und schaut auf den Laptop. © Aliona Kardash​/​TU Dortmund
“Think. Try. Transform.”

How the Universe Works

© Lisa Bischoff​​/​​RUB
Julia Tjus, Sven-Daniel Gettys, and Johannes Albrecht (from left) during the podcast recording.
What is dark matter? How does the universe manage to accelerate particles a hundred times faster than humans can in the world’s largest laboratory? These and other fundamental questions about the structure of the universe are the focus of particle physicists and astrophysicists at Ruhr University Bochum and TU Dortmund University. In the new episode of the “Think.Try.Transform” podcast, Prof. Julia Tjus and Prof. Johannes Albrecht offer insights into their research.

The questions that particle physicists and astrophysicists explore are almost philosophical in nature. Yet they maintain a remarkably positive attitude and take pleasure in the work they do collaboratively with colleagues around the globe. Prof. Julia Tjus, an astrophysicist at Ruhr University Bochum, and Prof. Johannes Albrecht, a particle physicist at the Technical University of Dortmund, are guests on Sven-Daniel Gettys’ podcast “Think. Try. Transform.” to promote the Ruhr Innovation Lab’s application for the Excellence Strategy. They represent the focal area “Matter in terrestrial and cosmic laboratories.”

Tiny Particles and Huge Detectors

Their work focuses on the smallest particles that make up matter. To do this, they need the largest experiments the world has ever built: Johannes Albrecht, site spokesperson for the “Color meets Flavor” Cluster of Excellence at TU Dortmund University, conducts experiments with his team at CERN in Geneva, among other places. “This is the largest machine humanity has ever built,” he enthuses. Here, researchers collide particles at high speeds to understand the energies they contain and how they interact.