Related papers: Cosmology and Science Education: Problems and Prom…
Cosmology has come a long way from being based on a small number of observations to being a data-driven precision science. We discuss the questions "What is observable?", "What in the Universe is knowable?" and "What are the fundamental…
Certain results of observational cosmology cast critical doubt on the foundations of standard cosmology but leave most cosmologists untroubled. Alternative cosmological models that differ from the Big Bang have been published and defended…
The comparison of the Standard Cosmological Model (SCM) with astronomical observations, i.e. theory versus experiment, and with the Minimal Standard Model (MSM) in particle physics, i.e. theory versus theory, is discussed. The main issue of…
The Universe contains everything that exists, including life. And all that exists, including life, obeys universal physical laws. Do those laws then give adequate foundations for a complete explanation of biological phenomena? We discuss…
These lectures were addressed to nonspecialists willing to learn some basic facts, approaches, tools and observational evidence which conform modern cosmology. The aim is also to try to complement the many excellent treatises that exists on…
Scientific cosmology has now reached its period of maturity with the establishment of a standard model, which is the theory of an expanding universe. The question of whether this expansion resolves itself, in the past, into a singularity…
Revolutionary advances in both theory and technology have launched cosmology into its most exciting period of discovery yet. Unanticipated components of the universe have been identified, promising ideas for understanding the basic features…
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…
In this essay we discuss the difference in views of the Universe as seen by two different observers. While one of the observers follows a geodesic congruence defined by the geometry of the cosmological model, the other observer follows the…
This article looks at philosophical aspects and questions that modern astrophysical research gives rise to. Other than cosmology, astrophysics particularly deals with understanding phenomena and processes operating at "intermediate" cosmic…
Cosmoparticle physics is the natural result of development of mutual relationship between cosmology and particle physics. Its prospects offer the way to study the theory of everything and the true history of the Universe, based on it, in…
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,…
We list a few things that we do not understand about stars and that most people ignore. These are all hard problems. We can learn more cosmology by working on them to reduce the systematic errors they introduce than by trying to derive…
In this essay a critical review of present conceptual problems in current cosmology is provided from a more philosophical point of view. In essence, a digression on how could philosophy help cosmologists in what is strictly their…
Quantum cosmology in general denotes the application of quantum physics to the whole universe and thus gives rise to many realizations and examples, covering problems at different mathematical and conceptual levels. It is related to quantum…
Astronomy provides a laboratory for extreme physics, a window into environments at extremes of distance, temperature and density that often can't be reproduced in Earth laboratories, or at least not right away. A surprising amount of the…
Cosmology is the dot com of the sciences. Boom or bust. It is about nothing less than the origin and evolution of the Universe, the all of everything. It is the boldest of enterprises and not for the fainthearted. Cosmologists are the…
The dramatic confrontation between new observations and theories of the early and recent universe makes cosmology one of the most rapidly advancing fields in the physical sciences. The universe is a unique laboratory in which to probe…
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…
Cosmological models that invoke a multiverse - a collection of unobservable regions of space where conditions are very different from the region around us - are controversial, on the grounds that unobservable phenomena shouldn't play a…