Heavens' Kitchen simulation

Screenshot of Heavens' Kitchen.

What this is

This is a program, written in Java, to show a simulation of the Universe from the big bang onwards.

At the beginning of the simulation, you can alter the initial amounts of normal matter, total matter, and dark energy, to see what kind of Universe your ingredients create.

Download and Installation

• Download link
• Warning: This is an 800MB download!
• Unzip the file to get the Java application

To run

• You will need Java 1.6 or later already installed.
• It's designed to run in a 1024x768 resolution, so change your resolution to that first if you want it to look its best.
• Then you can use Java to run the program.
• If you have Windows, you should simply be able to double-click on JavaApplication2.jar, which should be in the directory you unzipped to
• Under Linux, you'll need to type something like: 'java -jar JavaApplication2.jar' to run the program.
• Once running, pressing 'q' or Escape will exit the program.

Educational Resources

The resources below cover a wide range of topics in gravity and cosmology. See the teacher outline for more details.

• Teacher Outline (DRAFT) [MS Word]; [PDF]
• Teacher Powerpoint [MS PowerPoint]; [PDF]
• Scales of the Universe worksheet [MS Word]; [PDF]
• Mass of the Sun worksheet [MS Word]; [PDF]
• Mass of Jupiter worksheet (using Stellarium) [MS Word]; [PDF]
• Finding Dark Matter worksheet [MS Word]; [PDF]
• Expansion of the Universe [GCSE]; [A level]
• Heavens' Kitchen worksheet [MS Word]; [PDF]

Credits

Original resource developed for an Oxford University exhibit at the 2006 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition.

Lead developer: Jonathan Patterson, Oxford University Astrophysics and Theoretical Physics subdepartments.

Additional resources developed by Chris North, Cardiff University