The Very Large and Very Small

Elementary particle physics or "high-energy physics" is the discipline that deals with the most fundamental particles of nature and their interactions. Thus, it addresses the smallest scales of nature. Cosmology, on the other hand, deals with the largest scales in nature.

We might think that these extremes of the distance scale have no relation. But the big bang implies that the entire Universe sprang from a state of infinite density (a point), so if we go far enough back in time, the "very large" becomes the "very small". The proposed solution to the problems of the left panel unite descriptions of the very large and very small in a single theory.