Related papers: The cosmology of the Divine Comedy
This paper is a short introduction to a special issue on philosophy of cosmology, published in the May 2014 issue of Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics. I briefly introduce the philosophy of cosmology, and then provide a…
The current cosmological paradigm, $\Lambda$CDM, is characterized its expansive description of the history of the Universe, its deep connections to particle physics and the large amounts of data that support it. Nonetheless, $\Lambda$CDM's…
The assumption that a complete description of an early state of the universe does not privilege any position or direction in space leads to a unified account of probability in cosmology, macroscopic physics, and quantum mechanics. Such a…
The necessary and sufficient conditions for a perfect fluid solution to define a spatially-homogeneous cosmology are achieved. These conditions are Intrinsic, Deductive, Explicit and ALgorithmic, and they offer an IDEAL labeling of these…
We show that many ancient Indian mythological legends are really allegorical depictions of astronomical and other physical phenomena of which the composers had a good idea. This detail enables us to also use techniques of astronomical…
``One could imagine that as a result of enormously extended astronomical experience, the entire universe consists of countless identical copies of our Milky Way, that the infinite space can be partitioned into cubes each containing an…
What is the shape of the Universe? Is it finite or infinite ? Is space multi-connected to create ghost images of faraway cosmic sources? After a "dark age" period, the field of cosmic topology has now become one of the major concerns in…
Multiverse scenarios are common place in contemporary high energy physics and cosmology, although many consider them simply as bold speculations. In any case there is nothing like a single theory or a unified model of the multiverse.…
The question of cosmic beginning has always attracted considerable attention from serious thinkers past and present. This article examines Ibn Sina's proposed solution to the vexed problem that given an eternally existing world and one…
This contribution presents the cosmological models with extra dimensions that have been recently elaborated, which assume that ordinary matter is confined on a surface, called brane, embedded in a higher dimensional spacetime.
Revolutionary advances in both theory and technology have launched cosmology into its most exciting period of discovery yet. Unanticipated components of the universe have been identified, promising ideas for understanding the basic features…
From the geocentric, closed world model of Antiquity to the wraparound universe models of relativistic cosmology, the parallel history of space representations in science and art illustrates the fundamental role of geometric imagination in…
We provide a syllabification algorithm for the Divine Comedy using techniques from probabilistic and constraint programming. We particularly focus on the synalephe, addressed in terms of the "propensity" of a word to take part in a…
A cosmological model describing the evolution of n Ricci-flat spaces (n>1) in the presence of 1-component perfect-fluid and minimally coupled scalar field is considered. When the pressures in all spaces are proportional to the density, the…
For more than a half century cosmologists have been guided by the assumption that matter is distributed homogeneously on sufficiently large scales. On the other hand, observations have consistently yielded evidence for inhomogeneity in the…
As for Shakespeare, a hard-fought debate has emerged about Moli\`ere, a supposedly uneducated actor who, according to some, could not have written the masterpieces attributed to him. In the past decades, the century-old thesis according to…
In the distant past, astronomy was often intertwined with religion into a unified cosmos. As science became a distinct cultural enterprise, astronomy has witnessed a variety of rich interactions with other fields. Mathematical statistics…
Cultural astronomy reveals ways in which perception and culture have shaped the interpretation of the night sky.
The scientific status of physical cosmology has been the subject of philosophical debate ever since detailed mathematical models of the Universe emerged from Einstein's general theory of relativity. Such debates have revolved around whether…
Based on Plato's Timaeus, we present some reflections on music, cosmology and mathematics and their mutual influence.The article is dedicated to the composer Walter Zimmermann. The final version of this article will appear in the volume…