Related papers: Astronomical arguments in Newton's Chronology
The article is an historical overview of some of the major contributions from different areas of Science with which, for centuries, it has been built up a scientific, sound and consistent vision of the atom. Some experiments that led us to…
Cosmology is a field of physics in which the use of General Relativity theory is indispensable. However, a cosmology based on Newtonian gravity theory for gravity is possible in certain circumstances. The applicability of Newtonian theory…
Planck's formula and General Relativity indicate that potential energy influences spacetime. Using Einstein's Equivalence Principle and an extension of his Chock Hypothesis, an explicit description of this influence is derived. We present a…
In the present essay we attempt to reconstruct Newtonian mechanics under the guidance of logical principles and of a constructive approach related to the genetic epistemology of J. Piaget and R. Garc\'ia \citep{piag89}. Instead of…
One signature of an expanding universe is the time-variation of the cosmological abundances of its different components. For example, a radiation-dominated universe inevitably gives way to a matter-dominated universe, and critical moments…
This article supports the epistemological claim that sound human reasoning about ultimate knowledge is either foundational or circularly justified. In particular, questions which naturally arise in theology, philosophy, and related…
I argue that Einstein overlooked an important aspect of the relativity of time in never quite realizing his quest to embody Mach's principle in his theory of gravity. As a step towards that goal, I broaden the Strong Equivalence Principle…
Astronomy has played a major part in the development of civilisations, not only through conceptual developments, but most importantly through the very practical gains obtained through the observation of Sun, Moon planets and stars. Space…
The basic equations describing a Newtonian universe with uniform pressure are reexamined. We argue that in the semi-classical formulation adopted in the literature the continuity equation has a misleading pressure gradient term. When this…
Over the past decades and even centuries, the astronomical community has accumulated a signif-icant heritage of recorded observations of a great many astronomical objects. Those records con-tain irreplaceable information about long-term…
Uncertainty quantification is a key part of astronomy and physics; scientific researchers attempt to model both statistical and systematic uncertainties in their data as best as possible, often using a Bayesian framework. Decisions might…
In his essay "Nature Conformable to Herself" the late Murray Gell-Mann expands on an observation of Newton that theories of seemingly disparate phenomena in the universe often make use of similar ideas and similar mathematical structure.…
This contribution argues that the notion of time used in the scientific modeling of reality deprives time of its real nature. Difficulties from logic paradoxes to mathematical incompleteness and numerical uncertainty ensue. How can the…
We perform a situational diagnosis in topics of astronomy of pre-service elementary teachers in order to try and develop didactic tools that better collaborate with their formal education. In this work we present the instrument we designed…
An overview is given in section 1, of uncertain building blocks of present-day cosmologies. Thereafter, these edited lecture notes deal with the following four special problems: (1) They advertise Wiltshire's result -- making `dark energy'…
With the availability of nice images and amazing, dramatic stories, the fundamental questions it addresses, and the attraction is exerces on many, it is often assumed that astronomy is an obvious topic for the media. Looking more carefully,…
Most of the observational claims in cosmology are based on the assumption that the universe is isotropic and homogeneous so they essentially test different types of Friedmann models. This also refers to recent observations of supernovae Ia,…
The history of astrometry, the branch of astronomy dealing with the positions of celestial objects, is a lengthy and complex chronicle, having its origins in the earliest records of astronomical observations more than two thousand years…
It appears paradoxical that science is producing outstanding new results and theories at a rapid rate at the same time that researchers are identifying serious problems in the practice of science that cause many reports to be irreproducible…
This is a brief survey of the current status of Stephen Hawking's ``chronology protection conjecture''. That is: ``Why does nature abhor a time machine?'' I'll discuss a few examples of spacetimes containing ``time machines'' (closed causal…