Related papers: Practical cosmology and cosmological physics
I present a selection of conceptual and mathematical problems in the foundations of modern physics as they derive from the title question. Contribution to a panel session, "Springer Forum: Quantum Structures -- Physical, Mathematical and…
Recent cosmological observations of unprecented accuracy, by WMAP in particular, have established a `Standard Model' of cosmology, just as LEP established the Standard Model of particle physics. Both Standard Models raise open questions…
The main tools in cosmology for comparing theoretical models with the observations of the galaxy distribution are statistical. We will review the applications of spatial statistics to the description of the large-scale structure of the…
In this contribution to the conference "Beyond Einstein: Historical Perspectives on Geometry, Gravitation and Cosmology in the Twentieth Century", we give a critical status report of attempts to explain the late accelerated expansion of the…
As 2005, the International Year of Physics, comes to an end, two physicists working primarily in geophysical research reflect on how geophysics is not an applied physics. Although geophysics has certainly benefited from progress in physics…
This is a review article for The Review of Particle Physics 2010 (aka the Particle Data Book). It forms a compact review of knowledge of the cosmological parameters at the beginning of 2010. Topics included are Parametrizing the Universe;…
The confrontation between general relativity (and its theoretically most plausible deviations) and experimental or observational results is summarized. Some discussion is devoted to the various methodologies used in confronting theory and…
The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect provides a useful probe of cosmology and structure formation in the Universe. Recent years have seen rapid progress in both quality and quantity of its measurements. In this review, we overview cosmological and…
Over 60 authors have worked on various versions of self-creation cosmology (SCC) since the original paper in 1982. These papers adapted the Brans Dicke theory to create mass out of the universe's self contained scalar, gravitational and…
The papers included in this Focus Point collection are devoted to the studies on the cosmological tensions and challenges stimulated by the latest observational data. The first results of the LARES-2 laser ranging satellite on the high…
This thesis employs the dynamical systems approach to explore two cosmological models: an anisotropic dark energy scenario in a Bianchi-I background and the Generalized SU(2) Proca (GSU2P) theory in a flat FLRW background. In the first…
This is a review article for The Review of Particle Physics 2006 (aka the Particle Data Book). It forms a compact review of knowledge of the cosmological parameters as at May 2006. Topics included are Parametrizing the Universe; Extensions…
In spite of great progress over the last $\sim 10$ years, especially thanks to HST, a number of exciting open problem still puzzle astronomers working on globular clusters in our own and other galaxies. These problems range from determining…
The current standard cosmological model is constructed within the framework of general relativity with a cosmological constant $\Lambda$, which is often associated with dark energy, and phenomenologically explains the accelerated cosmic…
(Abridged) Cosmology faces three distinct challenges in the next decade. (1) The dark sector, both dark matter and dark energy, dominates the Universe. Key questions include determining the nature of both. Improved observational probes are…
The discovery that the cosmic expansion is accelerating has been followed by an intense theoretical and experimental response in physics and astronomy. The discovery implies that our most basic notions about how gravity work are violated on…
The detection of the accelerated expansion of the Universe has been one of the major breakthroughs in modern cosmology. Several cosmological probes (CMB, SNe Ia, BAO) have been studied in depth to better understand the nature of the…
We describe a rigorous construction, using matched asymptotic expansions, which establishes under very general conditions that local terrestrial and solar-system experiments will measure the effects of varying `constants' of Nature…
This is a summary of the `Astronomy Perspective' of the 4th meeting on 'Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy' held at Penn State University in June 2006. We comment on trends in the Astronomy community towards Bayesian methods and…
The discovery that the Universe is accelerating in its expansion has brought the basic concept of cosmic expansion into question. An analysis of the evolution of this concept suggests that the paradigm that was finally settled into prior to…