Related papers: A diatribe on expanding space
An overview of the 2001 astronomy job market is presented, highlighting the recent hiring trends which prospective PhD students and postdocs might like to be aware of. Cosmology and extragalactic astronomy continue to dominate the market,…
Possibility of gravitational repulsion in General Relativity is discussed and astronomical data in favor of cosmological acceleration are described. The problem of vacuum energy is emphasized and possible ways of its solution are indicated.…
Astrobiology is the field of science devoted to searching for life elsewhere in the Universe. It is inherently interdisciplinary, integrating results from multiple fields of science, and in this respect has strong synergies with 'big…
This is a pedagogical review of the recent observational data obtained from type Ia supernova surveys that support the accelerating expansion of the universe. The methods for the analysis of the data are reviewed and some of the theoretical…
A (subjective) overview of Internet resources relevant to professional astronomers is given. Special emphasis is put on databases of astronomical objects and servers providing general information, e.g. on astronomical catalogues, finding…
In recent years scholars have built maps of science by connecting the academic fields that cite each other, are cited together, or that cite a similar literature. But since scholars cannot always publish in the fields they cite, or that…
These notes are an exposition and synthesis of various "jet space" constructions in complex analytic geometry. They are written primarily for model-theorists interested in the results of Campana and Fujiki (whose model-theoretic…
The general features of the cosmic-ray spectrum have been known for a long time. Although the basic approaches to understanding cosmic-ray propagation and acceleration have also been well understood for many years, there are several…
This is a personal and historical essay based on the Shaw Prize Lecture given in Hong Kong in September 2017 in association with the 2017 Shaw Prize in Astronomy.
This note contains a newly streamlined version of the original proof that Outer space is contractible.
Following on from ideas presented in a recent paper by Schneider et al. (2010) on "The Far Future of Exoplanet Direct Characterization", I argue that they have exaggerated the technical obstacles to performing such 'direct characterization'…
In the standard cosmological theory one uses the Einstein concepts of space and time as were originally introduced for the special theory of relativity and the general relativity theory. According to this approach all physical quantities…
In this article I chronicle a series of landmark events, with which I was personally involved, that relate to the development of the theory of cosmic life. The interpretation of events offered here might invite a sense of incredulity on the…
The implications of string theory for understanding the dimension of uncompactified spacetime are investigated. Using recent ideas in string cosmology, a new model is proposed to explain why three spatial dimensions grew large. Unlike the…
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…
It has been shown (S. Lawrence, 2001, Nature, 411, 521) that journal articles which have been posted without charge on the internet are more heavily cited than those which have not been. Using data from the NASA Astrophysics Data System…
We analyze the necessary conditions for a body to remain rigid in an expanding cosmological Universe. First, we establish the main theorems and definitions for having a rigid body in a general spacetime as well as the new concept of…
The mood at this conference is summarized in David Hughes' comment, ``this decade will be amazing.'' We've just had a pretty good ten years of advances in cosmology and extragalactic astronomy; why should we expect a repeat, another decade…
This is the lecture note of my invited lecture given at the International Conference on Number Theory at Harish-Chandra Research Institute in Allahabad (quite near the River Ganges), India on December 5, 2006. I gave an invited lecture on…
The question of the nature of space around us has occupied thinkers since the dawn of humanity, with scientists and philosophers today implicitly assuming that space is something that exists objectively. Here we show that this does not have…