Related papers: Astronomical arguments in Newton's Chronology
In this note I go through the `proof' of frequentistic confidence intervals and show what it logically implies concerning the value of a physical quantity given an experimental observation (nothing).
Elementary physical reasoning seems to leave it inevitable that global warming would increase the variability of the weather. The first two terms in an approximation to the global entropy are used to show that global warming has increased…
Space and time are central concepts for understanding our World. They are important ingredients at the core of every scientific theory and subject of intense debate in philosophy. Albert Einstein's Special and General theories of Relativity…
Our understanding about things is conceptual. By stating that we reason about objects, it is in fact not the objects but concepts referring to them that we manipulate. Now, so long just as we acknowledge infinitely extending notions such as…
Science looks for the simplest hypotheses to explain observations. Starting with the simple assumption that {\em the actual world is the best possible world}, I sketch an {\it Optimal Argument for the Existence of God}, that the sufferings…
Clocks in different heights or with different velocities run with different speeds. For global positioning systems these effects are much too large to be ignored. Nevertheless, in classical and quantum mechanics we get high accuracy using a…
Advanced observational facilities allow to trace back the chemical evolution of the Universe, on the one hand, from local objects of different ages and, secondly, by direct observations of redshifted objects. The chemical enrichment serves…
A case for the teaching of classical thermodynamics with an explicit time variable, with phenomena involving changes in time, is made by presenting and solving a exercise in textbook style, and pointing out that a solution accords with…
One of the presuppositions of science since the times of Galileo, Newton, Laplace, and Descartes has been the predictability of the world. This idea has strongly influenced scientific and technological models. However, in recent decades,…
It is widely accepted that temporal asymmetry is largely a cosmological problem; the task of explaining temporal asymmetry reduces in the main to that of explaining an aspect of the condition of the early universe. However, cosmologists who…
Ancient origins of a modern anthropic argument against cosmologies involving infinite series of past events are considered. It is shown that this argument - which in modern times has been put forward by distinguished cosmologists like Paul…
The problem of time of quantum gravity has been argued to make canonical approaches unsatisfactory. In this article I study how it affects quantum cosmology and reach the same conclusion. The advantage of studying the cosmological case is…
At any moment in time, evolution is faced with a formidable challenge: refining the already highly optimised design of biological species, a feat accomplished through all preceding generations. In such a scenario, the impact of random…
In this short review, we trace the evolution of inference in astronomy, highlighting key milestones rather than providing an exhaustive survey. We focus on the shift from classical optimization to Bayesian inference, the rise of…
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…
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,…
Edwin Hubble is famous for a number of discoveries that are well known to amateur and professional astronomers, students and the general public. The origins of these discoveries are examined and it is demonstrated that, in each case, a…
This paper explores the evolution of the so called "anthropic reasoning" in a historical perspective. It takes under scrutiny the appearance of "anthropic" considerations in various stages of modern cosmology, focusing also on some very…
We attempt to provide a comprehensive model of evolution of science across millennia taking into account the contributions of other intellectual traditions, cultural value system and increasing in sophistication of humans in their study of…
Even when completely and consistently formulated, a fundamental theory of physics and cosmological boundary conditions may not give unambiguous and unique predictions for the universe we observe; indeed inflation, string/M theory, and…