Related papers: Lessons from Windows on the Universe
The changes of main paradigms on the structure and evolution of the Universe are reviewed. Two puzzles of the modern cosmology, the mean density of matter and the regularity of the Universe on large scales, as well as the possibility to…
In these notes we present a selection of topics, each section approximately amounting to one lecture. We begin with a brief recapitulation of General Relativity, and the Standard Model of Cosmology. This is followed by lectures on important…
The notion that there are many "universes" with different properties is one answer to the question of "why is the universe so hospitable to life?" This notion also naturally follows from current ideas in eternal inflation and string/M…
This general talk is geared toward non-specialists and addresses three questions: (1) What types of cosmological simulations are done? (2) What are the relevant problems to address and what results can one expect? (3) How can one tell if…
An introductory lectures on cosmology at ITEP Winter School for students specializing in particle physics are presented. Many important subjects are not covered because of lack of time and space but hopefully the lectures may serve as a…
Rich clusters of galaxies, the largest virialized systems known, provide a powerful tool for the study of cosmology. Some of the fundamental questions that can be addressed with clusters of galaxies include: how did galaxies and large-scale…
Habitability varies dramatically with location and time in the universe. This was recognized centuries ago, but it was only in the last few decades that astronomers began to systematize the study of habitability. The introduction of the…
The "new standard cosmology", based on the theory of inflation, has very impressive observational support. I review some outstanding problems of the new cosmology and the global view of the universe -- the multiverse -- that it suggests. I…
Astronomy is the study of the Universe and all the objects that it comprises. Our attention is therefore usually focused beyond Earth, home to the only form of life known today. However, how can we continue to explore the secrets of the…
Cosmological consequences of the brane world scenario are reviewed in a pedagogical manner. According to the brane world idea, the standard model particles are confined on a hyper--surface (a so--called brane), which is embedded in a…
We describe how cosmology has converged towards a beautiful model of the Universe: the Big Bang Universe. We praise this model, but show there is a dark side to it. This dark side is usually called ``the cosmological problems'': a set of…
We consider recent reports on small-world topologies of interaction networks derived from the dynamics of spatially extended systems that are investigated in diverse scientific fields such as neurosciences, geophysics, or meteorology. With…
Recent theoretical developments have generated a strong interest in the ``brane-world'' picture, which assumes that ordinary matter is trapped in a three-dimensional submanifold, usually called brane, embedded in a higher dimensional space.…
This paper introduces foundations for a new kind of cosmology. We advocate that computer simulations are needed to address two key cosmological issues. First, the robustness of the emergence of complexity, which boils down to ask: "what…
The actual existence of collections of universes -- multiverses -- is strongly suggested by leading approaches to quantum cosmology, and has been proposed earlier as an attractive way to explain the apparent fine-tuned character of our…
The apparent fine-tuning of several fundamental parameters that determine the properties of our Universe and make it hospitable to life is sometimes used as an argument for God from design. I review the concept of cosmic fine-tuning and…
The study of planets outside our solar system may lead to major advances in our understanding of the Earth, and provide insight into the universal set of rules by which planets form and evolve. To achieve these goals requires applying…
Loop quantum cosmology is an application of recent developments for a non-perturbative and background independent quantization of gravity to a cosmological setting. Characteristic properties of the quantization such as discreteness of…
Cosmology today is confronted with several seemingly insoluble puzzles and strange, inexplicable coincidences. But a careful re-examination of the Cosmological principle and the Weyl postulate, foundational elements in this subject,…
Recent years have seen tremendous progress in our understanding of the extreme universe, which in turn points to even deeper questions to be further addressed. History has shown that the symbiosis between direct observations and laboratory…