Related papers: How does the Hubble Sphere limit our view of the U…
The Universe has a gravitational horizon, coincident with the Hubble sphere, that plays an important role in how we interpret the cosmological data. Recently, however, its significance as a true horizon has been called into question, even…
The emergence of a highly improbable coincidence in cosmological observations speaks to a remarkably simple cosmic expansion. Compelling evidence now suggests that the Universe's gravitational horizon, coincident with the better known…
There has been a recent spate of papers on the Cosmic Horizon, an apparently fundamental, although unrecognised, property of the universe. The misunderstanding of this horizon, it is claimed, demonstrates that our determination of the…
The recently unveiled deep-field images from the James Webb Space Telescope have renewed interest in what we can and cannot see of the universe. Answering these questions requires understanding the so-called "cosmological horizons" and the…
Cosmic event horizons separate spacetime into disjoint regions: those regions whose light signals can reach us, and more distant regions we cannot, even in principle, observe. For one type of cosmic horizon, associated with universes that…
What can we know about the universe? I outline a few of the fundamental limitations that are posed to our understanding of the cosmos, such as the existence of horizons, the fact that we occupy a specific place in space and time, the…
This article reviews the properties and limitations associated with the existence of particle, visual, and event horizons in cosmology in general and in inflationary universes in particular, carefully distinguishing them from `Hubble…
The Hubble radius is a particular manifestation of the Universe's gravitational horizon, R_h(t_0)=c/H_0, the distance beyond which physical processes remain unobservable to us at the present epoch. Based on recent observations of the cosmic…
The cosmological particle horizon is the maximum measurable length in the Universe. The existence of such a maximum observable length scale implies a modification of the quantum uncertainty principle. Thus due to non-locality of quantum…
The Hubble law, determined from the distance modulii and redshifts of galaxies, for the past 80 years, has been used as strong evidence for an expanding universe. This claim is reviewed in light of the claimed lack of necessary evidence for…
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST), in its thirteen years of operation, has allowed us to observe properties of the universe humans have been able, until very recently, to probe only with their thoughts. This review presents a brief summary…
We observe the past and present of the universe, but can we predict the far future? Observations suggest that in thousands of billions of years from now most matter and radiation will be absorbed by the cosmological horizon. As it absorbs…
The universe we observe is homogeneous on super-horizon scales, leading to the ``cosmic homogeneity problem''. Inflation alleviates this problem but cannot solve it within the realm of conservative extrapolations of classical physics. A…
Our knowledge about the universe has increased tremendously in the last three decades or so --- thanks to the progress in observations --- but our understanding has improved very little. There are several fundamental questions about our…
Existing physical theories do not predict every feature of our experience but only certain regularities of that experience. That difference between what could be observed and what can be predicted is one kind of limit on scientific…
From an observational perspective cosmology is today in excellent shape - advances in instrumentation and data processing have enabled us to study the universe in detail back to when the first galaxies formed, map the fluctuations in the…
We use standard general relativity to illustrate and clarify several common misconceptions about the expansion of the Universe. To show the abundance of these misconceptions we cite numerous misleading, or easily misinterpreted, statements…
Conventional thinking says the universe is infinite. But it could be finite and relatively small, merely giving the illusion of a greater one, like a hall of mirrors. Recent astronomical measurements add support to a finite space with a…
In a universe dominated by a small cosmological constant or by eternal dark energy with equation of state w < -1/3, observers are surrounded by event horizons. The horizons limit how much of the universe the observers can ever access. We…
We consider ever-expanding Big Bang models with a cosmological constant, $\Lambda$, and investigate in detail the evolution of the observable part of the universe. We also discuss quintessence models from the same point of view. A new…