<p>The way Morgane K\u00f6nig sees it, questioning how we came to be in the universe is one of the most fundamental parts of being human.<\/p>nn<p>When she was 12 years old, K\u00f6nig decided the place to find answers was in physics. A family friend was a physicist, and she attributed her interest in the field to him. But it wasn’t until a trip back to her mother’s home country of C\u00f4te d’Ivoire that K\u00f6nig learned her penchant for the subject had started much younger. No one in C\u00f4te d’Ivoire was surprised she was pursuing physics \u2014 they told her she’d been peering upward at the stars since she was a small child, wondering how they all had come together. \u00ad<\/p>nn<p>That wonder never left her. \u201cEveryone looks at the stars. Everyone looks at the moon. Everybody wonders about the universe,\u201d says K\u00f6nig. \u201cI\u2019m trying to understand it with math.\u201d<\/p>nn<p>K\u00f6nig\u2019s observations have led her to MIT, where in 2021 she continued studying theoretical cosmology as a postdoc with physicist and cosmologist Alan Guth and physicist and historian of science David Kaiser. Now, she is a member of MIT\u2019s 2023-24 Martin Luther King (MLK) Visiting Professors and Scholars Program cohort, alongside 11 others. This year, members of the MLK Scholars are researching and teaching diverse subjects including documentary filmmaking, behavioral economics, and writing children\u2019s books.<\/p>nn<p>Once she was set on physics, K\u00f6nig finished her undergraduate studies in 2012, double-majoring in mathematics and physics at Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris.<\/p>nn<p>Still compelled by questions about the universe, K\u00f6nig narrowed in on cosmology, and graduated with her master\u2019s degree from Pierre and Marie Curie in 2014. The way K\u00f6nig describes it, cosmology is like archaeology, just up in space. While astronomers study galaxy formations and mutations \u2014 all of the stuff<em> <\/em>in the universe \u2014 cosmologists study everything about the universe, all at once.<\/p>nn<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a different scale, a different system,\u201d says K\u00f6nig. \u201cOf course, you need to understand stars, galaxies, and how they work, but cosmologists study the universe and its origin and contents as a whole.\u201d<\/p>nn<p><strong>From practice to theory<\/strong><\/p>nn<p>Throughout her studies, K\u00f6nig said, she was often the only woman in the room. She wanted to pursue the theories behind cosmology but wasn\u2019t encouraged to try. \u201cYou have to understand that being a woman in this field is super, incredibly difficult,\u201d says K\u00f6nig. \u201cI told everyone I wanted to do theory, and they didn’t believe in me. So many people told me not to do it.\u201d<\/p>nn<p>When K\u00f6nig had the opportunity to pursue a PhD in observational cosmology in Marseille and Paris, she almost accepted. But she was more drawn to theory. When she was offered a spot with a little more freedom to study cosmology at the University of California at Davis, she took it. Alongside Professor Nemanja Kaloper, K\u00f6nig dove into inflation theory, looking all the way back to the universe’s beginning.<\/p>nn<p>It is well-known that the universe is always expanding. Think about inflation as the precursor to that expansion \u2014 a quick and dramatic beginning, where the universe grew exponentially fast.<\/p>nn<p>\u201cInflation is the moment in history that happened right after the beginning of the universe,\u201d says K\u00f6nig. \u201cWe’re not talking about 1 second, not even a millisecond. We are talking 10 to the negative 32nd seconds.\u201d In other words, it took 0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,01 seconds for the universe to go from something minuscule to, well, everything. And today, the universe is only getting bigger.<\/p>nn<p>Only a sliver of the universe\u2019s composition is understandable using current technology \u2014 less than 5 percent of the universe is composed of matter we can see. Everything else is dark matter and dark energy.<\/p>nn<p>For decades, cosmologists have been trying to excavate the universe\u2019s mysterious past using photons, the tiny, particle form of light. Since light travels at a fixed speed, light emitted further back in the universe\u2019s history, from objects that are now farther away from us due to the expansion of the universe, takes longer to reach Earth. \u201cIf you look at the sun \u2014 don\u2019t do it! \u2014 but if you did, you\u2019d actually be seeing it eight minutes in the past,\u201d says K\u00f6nig. As they carve their way through the universe, photons give cosmologists historical information, acting as messengers across time. But photons can only account for the luminous 4.9 percent of the universe. Everything else is dark.<\/p>nn<p>Since dark matter doesn\u2019t emit or reflect photons like luminous matter, researchers can\u2019t see it. K\u00f6nig likens dark matter to an invisible person wearing a tuxedo. She knows something is there because the tuxedo is dancing, swinging its arms and legs around. But she can\u2019t see or study the person inside the suit using the technology at hand. Dark matter has stirred up countless theories, and K\u00f6nig is interested in the methods behind those theories. She is asking: How do you study something dark when light particles are necessary for gathering historical information?<\/p>nn<p>According to K\u00f6nig and her MIT collaborators \u2014 Guth, the forerunner of inflation theory, and Kaiser, the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science \u2014 the answer might lie in gravitational waves. K\u00f6nig is using her time at MIT to see if she can sidestep light particles entirely by using the ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves. These waves are caused by the collision of massive, dense stellar objects such as neutron stars. Gravitational waves also transmit information across the universe, in essence giving us a new sense, like hearing is to seeing. With data from instruments such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) and NANOGrav, \u201cnot only can we look at it, now we can hear the cosmos, too,\u201d she says.<\/p>nn<p><strong>Black in physics<\/strong><\/p>nn<p>Last year, K\u00f6nig worked on two all-Black research teams with physicists Marcell Howard and Tatsuya Daniel. \u201cWe did great work together,\u201d K\u00f6nig says, but she points out how their small group was one of the largest all-Black theoretical physics research teams \u2014 ever. She emphasizes how they cultivated creativity and mentorship while doing highly technical science, producing two published papers (<a href=”https:\/\/physics.paperswithcode.com\/paper\/elastic-scattering-of-cosmological#:~:text=We%20show%20that%20elastic%20scattering,objects%20induce%20much%20smaller%20distortions.”>Elastic Scattering of Cosmological Gravitational Wave Backgrounds<\/a> and <a href=”https:\/\/arxiv.org\/pdf\/2308.00111.pdf#:~:text=Recall%20that%20the%20SZ%20effect,in%20CGWBs%27%20energy%20density%20spectrum.”>An SZ-Like Effect on Cosmological Gravitational Wave Backgrounds<\/a>).<\/p>nn<p>Out of the 69,238 people who have earned doctorates in physics and astronomy since 1981, only 122 of them were Black women, according to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. When K\u00f6nig finished her PhD in 2021, she became the first Black student at UC Davis to receive a PhD in physics and the ninth Black woman to ever complete a doctorate in theoretical physics in the United States.<\/p>nn<p>This past October, in a presentation at MIT, K\u00f6nig ended with an animated slide depicting a young Black girl sitting in a dark meadow, surrounded by warm lights and rustling grass. The girl was looking up at the stars, her eyes full of wonder. \u201cI had to make this with AI,\u201d says K\u00f6nig. \u201cI couldn’t find an image online of a young Black girl looking up at the stars. So, I made one.\u201d<\/p>nn<p>In 2017, K\u00f6nig went to C\u00f4te d’Ivoire, spending time teaching school children about physics and cosmology. \u201cThe room was full,\u201d she says. Adults and students alike came to listen to her. Everyone wanted to learn, and everyone echoed the same questions about the universe as K\u00f6nig did when she was younger. But, she says, \u201cthe difference between them and me is that I was given a chance to study this. I had access to people explaining how incredible and exciting physics is.\u201d<\/p>nn<p>K\u00f6nig sees a stark disconnect between physics in Africa and physics everywhere else. She wants universities around the world to make connections with African universities, building efforts to encourage students of all backgrounds to pursue the field of physics.<\/p>nn<p>K\u00f6nig explains that ushering in more Black and African physicists means starting at the beginning and encouraging more undergraduates and young students to enter the field. \u201cThere is an enormous amount of talent and brilliance there,\u201d K\u00f6nig says. She sees an opportunity to connect with students across Africa, building the bridges needed to help everyone pursue the questions that keep them looking up at the stars.<\/p>nn<p>While K\u00f6nig loves her research, she knows theoretical cosmology has far to come to as a discipline. \u201cThere is so much room to grow in the field. It\u2019s not all figured out.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
<p>The way Morgane K\u00f6nig sees it, questioning how we came to be in the universe is one of the most fundamental parts of being human.<\/p>nn<p>When she was 12 years old, K\u00f6nig decided the place to find answers was in physics. A family friend was a physicist, and she attributed her interest in the field to… Continue reading Everything, everywhere all at once<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hadamard.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hadamard.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hadamard.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hadamard.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hadamard.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hadamard.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hadamard.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hadamard.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hadamard.com\/c\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}