Related papers: The Astronomy and Science Behind the Myth
Contemporary astronomy benefits of very large and rapidly growing amounts of data in all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, from long-wavelength radio waves to high energy gamma-rays. Astronomers normally specialize in data taken in one…
We examine astronomical observations that would be achievable over a future timeline corresponding to the documented history of human civilization so far, $\sim 10^4$ years. We examine implications for measurements of the redshift drift,…
When we are fortunate enough to view an exoplanetary system nearly edge-on, the star and planet periodically eclipse each other. Observations of eclipses (transits and occultations) provide a bonanza of information that cannot be obtained…
How special (or not) is the epoch we are living in? What is the appropriate reference class for embedding the observations made at the present time? How probable -- or else -- is anything we observe in the fulness of time? Contemporary…
Scientific articles, for instance in the field of astrophysics, are often filled with a variety of images. In philosophical studies, these images are usually analyzed in terms of their function within the scientific argument presented in…
We discuss how developments in physics often imply in the need that spacetime acquires an increasingly richer and complex structure. General Relativity was the first theory to show us the way to connect space and time with the physical…
Despite the extensive amount of scholarly work done on Indian mathematics in the last 200 years, the conditions under which it originated and evolved is still not clear. Often, one reads the ancient texts with the present concepts and…
These lecture notes aim to provide an introduction to dark matter from the perspective of astrophysics/cosmology. We start with a rapid overview of cosmology, including the evolution of the Universe, its thermal history and structure…
We lay the groundwork for a formal framework that studies scientific theories and can serve as a unified foundation for the different theories within physics. We define a scientific theory as a set of verifiable statements, assertions that…
Time-symmetric cosmological theories, in which the initial and final states are arranged to have similar features or are independently fixed, have been quite extensively discussed in the literature. However, a more general and perhaps more…
A mathematical model of the natural origin of our universe is presented. The model is based only on well-established physics. No claim is made that this model uniquely represents exactly how the universe came about. But the viability of a…
Ages are key to truly understand a large plethora of astrophysical phenomena. On the other hand, stellar clusters are open windows to understand stellar evolution, specifically, the change with time and mass of different stellar properties.…
Astronomy has a distinguished tradition of using technology to accelerate the quality and effectiveness of science, and data-intensive initiatives such as the Virtual Observatory lead the way amongst other fields of science. However,…
Indigenous Knowledge is important for Indigenous communities across the globe and for the advancement of our general scientific knowledge. In particular, Indigenous astronomical knowledge integrates many aspects of Indigenous Knowledge,…
We discuss different methods for phenomenological approximations of signals with (generally) irregularly spaced arguments. Such signals may be classified as periodic, multi-periodic, quasi-periodic (cyclic), burst-type and flicker-type (see…
Information is everywhere in nature which is very uncertain and unpredictable. But information, in itself, is a very ambiguous term. In this cursory write-up, we attempt to understand the formal meaning of information by quantifying…
When a physicist says that a theory is fine-tuned, they mean that it must make a suspiciously precise assumption in order to explain a certain observation. This is evidence that the theory is deficient or incomplete. One particular case of…
It is evident that models of the knee should match the observational phenomenology. In this talk I discuss a few aspects of phenomenology, which are important not only for the understanding of the knee origin, but also for the general…
For a few years now, cosmology has a standard model. By this term, we mean a consistent theoretical background which is at the same time simple and broad enough to offer coherent explanations for the vast majority of cosmological phenomena.…
A new approach to the phenomenon of large numbers coincidence leads to unexpected results. No matter how strange it might sound, the exact value of cosmological parameters and their analytical expression through fundamental constants have…