Related papers: From the Big Bang to the Multiverse: Translations …
Since 2004, I have been collaborating with artist Josiah McElheny on the design of cosmological sculptures, inspired originally by the chandeliers of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. The four works that we have completed to date…
"The Center is Everywhere" is a sculpture by Josiah McElheny, currently (through October 14, 2012) on exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. The sculpture is based on data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), using…
This essay is a nontechnical primer for a broader audience, in which I paint a broad-brush picture of modern cosmology. I begin by reviewing the evidence for the big bang, including the expansion of our Universe, the cosmic microwave…
An elementary survey of mathematical cosmology is presented. We cover certain key ideas and developments in a qualitative way, from the time of the Einstein static universe in 1917 until today. We divide our presentation into four main…
In the century since Einstein's anno mirabilis of 1905, our concept of the Universe has expanded from Kapteyn's flattened disk of stars only 10 kpc across to an observed horizon about 30 Gpc across that is only a tiny fraction of an…
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.…
I review the holographic theory of space-time and its applications to cosmology. Much of this has appeared before, but the discussion is more unified and concise. I also include some material on work in progress, whose aim is to understand…
Astrophysical observations of the cosmos allow us to probe extreme physics and answer foundational questions on our universe. Modern astronomy is increasingly operating under a holistic approach, probing the same question with multiple…
Modern cosmology poses deep and unavoidable questions for fundamental physics. In this plenary talk, delivered in slightly different forms at the {\it Particles and Nuclei International Conference} (PANIC05) in Santa Fe, in October 2005,…
We are experiencing a period of extreme intellectual effervescence in the area of cosmology. A huge volume of observational data in unprecedented quantity and quality and a more consistent theoretical framework propelled cosmology to an era…
The past few years have seen several breakthroughs in particle astrophysics and cosmology. In several cases, new observations can only be explained with the introduction of new fundamental physics. In this talk I summarize some of these…
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…
Cosmology as an exact physical science is of new date, but it has long roots in the past. This essay is concerned with four important themes in the history of cosmological thought which, if taken together, offer a fairly comprehensive…
A convergence of ideas, observations and technology have led to the greatest period of cosmological discovery yet. Over the past three years we have determined the basic features of our Universe. We are now challenged to make sense of what…
The Cosmoglobe project is a global effort to jointly analyze complementary cosmological and astrophysical datasets, in order to better understand our Universe and its evolution. This paper describes the goals and motivations of the project,…
The current state of cosmology is easy to summarize: a very successful standard model -- the hot big-bang cosmology -- that accounts for the evolution of the Universe from 10^{-2} sec until the present; bold ideas based upon early-Universe…
This is a very comprehensible review of some key issues in Modern Cosmology. Simple mathematical examples and analogies are always used, whenever available. The starting point is the well know Big Bang Cosmology (BBC). We deal with the…
I review at the non-specialist level recent progress in the study of the large-scale structure of the Universe, covering the following areas: (1) Results from recently completed or ongoing redshift surveys of galaxies and X-ray clusters;…
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…
Recent years have seen dramatic progress in cosmology and particle astrophysics. So much so that anyone who dares to offer an overview would certainly risk him- or herself for being incomplete and biased at best, and even incorrect due to…