Related papers: Did time begin? Will time end?
In physics, there is the prevailing intuition that we are part of a unique external world, and that the goal of physics is to understand and describe this world. This assumption of the fundamentality of objective reality is often seen as a…
The limitations of current technology do not allow one to foresee the expansion of the humankind beyond our planet for at least a few decades. Furthermore, the laws of physics, as for as they are known, preclude any form of traveling beyond…
In the past century many fundamental results on unpredictability, undecidability and uncertainty have compelled scientists to grapple with the idea that some questions may never be resolved within our current theories. While this…
For two decades the hot big-bang model as been referred to as the standard cosmology -- and for good reason. For just as long cosmologists have known that there are fundamental questions that are not answered by the standard cosmology and…
This essay is based on a physics lecture given at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology on May 24, 2006, Hong Kong. It has 5 sections and one page of references and suggested reading. The section titles are: 1. Origin of the…
This article aims at applying the approaches peculiar to analytic philosophy to the question about representation of the concept of time as a symbol which can reflect the bases of the modern natural sciences, social sciences and humanities.…
The purpose of the paper is five-fold: (a) Argue that the question in the title can be presented in a meaningful manner and that it requires an answer. (b) Discuss the conventional answers and explain why they are unsatisfactory. (c)…
The existence of a positive and possibly varying Lambda-term opens a much wider field of possibilities for the future of our Universe than it was usually thought before. Definite predictions may be made for finite (though very large)…
In infinitely cyclic cosmology past eras are discussed using set theory and transfinite numbers. One consistent scenario, already in the literature, is where there is always a countably infinite number, $\aleph_0$, of universes and no big…
Some notes and questions about the concept of time are exposed. Particular reference is given to the problem in quantum mechanics, in connection with the indeterminacy principle.
Inflation has been the leading early universe scenario for two decades, and has become an accepted element of the successful `cosmic concordance' model. However, there are many puzzling features of the resulting theory. It requires both…
The National Academy of Sciences USA has posed eleven important questions about the Cosmos. This paper answers most of the questions based on the new concepts about "What is Time - A New Mathematico Physical And Information Theoretic…
In this note, we discuss how possible expansion histories of the universe can be inferred in a simple way, for arbitrary energy contents. No new physical results are obtained, but the goal is rather to discuss an alternative way of writing…
The idea that the vacuum energy density $\rho_{\Lambda}$ could be time dependent is a most reasonable one in the expanding Universe; in fact, much more reasonable than just a rigid cosmological constant for the entire cosmic history. Being…
Before the universe there was nothing, absolute nothing. That is the starting point because it is the only starting point that requires no cause, no explanation nor justification of its existence. But, that starting point has two…
When we want to predict the future, we compute it from what we know about the present. Specifically, we take a mathematical representation of observed reality, plug it into some dynamical equations, and then map the time-evolved result back…
Cosmoparticle physics offers the exciting challenge for the new Millenium to come to the true knowledge on the basic natural laws and on the way, they govern the creation and evolution of the Universe with all the forms of its present…
Is the universe digital or analog? In this essay I argue that both classical and quantum physics include limits that prevent us from definitively answering that question. That quantum physics does so is no surprise. That classical physics…
First, this paper broaches the definition of science and the epistemic yield of tenets and approaches: phenomenological (descriptive only), well-founded (solid first principles, conducive to deep understanding), provisional (falsifiable if…
Time, space, and matter are categories of our reasoning, whose properties appear to be fundamental. However, these require a scrutiny as in the extreme regime of the primordial universe these present quantum properties. What does it mean…