Related papers: A palace for astronomy in Buenos Aires
One evening, a father tells his three daughters, Luc\'ia, In\'es, and Ana, a bedtime story unlike any other. It is a tale of four silent architects ($c$, $\hbar$, $G$, and $\Lambda$) whose presence or absence shapes the very fabric of…
In the distant past, astronomy was often intertwined with religion into a unified cosmos. As science became a distinct cultural enterprise, astronomy has witnessed a variety of rich interactions with other fields. Mathematical statistics…
The measure problem of cosmology is how to assign normalized probabilities to observations in a universe so large that it may have many observations occurring at many different spacetime locations. I have previously shown how the Boltzmann…
Following a paper by Berman and Marinho Jr (2001), where it was established an equation of state (p=-(1/3)rho), for the very early Universe, under which, Einstein's equations with lambda=0, render a scale-factor proportional to the time…
The great meridian line in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome was built in 1701/1702 with the scope of measuring the obliquity of the Earth's orbit in the following eight centuries, upon the will of Pope Clement XI. During the…
A brief review of the present-day development of cosmology is presented for mixed physical audience. The universe history is briefly described. Unsolved problems are discussed, in particular, the mystery of the cosmological constant and…
After a survey of the present state of cosmological theory and observations, this article discusses a series of major themes underlying the relation of philosophy to cosmology. These are: A: The uniqueness of the universe; B: The large…
We are at a specific period of modern cosmology, during which the large increase of the amount of data leads to the idea that the determination of cosmological parameters has been achieved with a rather good precision. There is a large…
The apparent fine-tuning of several fundamental parameters that determine the properties of our Universe and make it hospitable to life is sometimes used as an argument for God from design. I review the concept of cosmic fine-tuning and…
In different passages of his dialogues, Plato showed deep mathematically-based physical insights. Regrettably most readers overlooked the respective statements, or they utterly did not understand those hints since they were full of…
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…
Some 400 years after Galileo, modern telescopes have enabled humanity to "see" what the natural eye cannot. Astronomical images today contain information about incredibly large objects located across vast distances and reveal information…
In the mid 18th century both theoretical and practical astronomy were cultivated in Milan by Barnabites and Jesuits. In 1763 R.G. Boscovich was appointed to the chair of mathematics of the University of Pavia in the Duchy of Milan, and the…
Great opportunities arise for teaching physics, astronomy, and their histories when new discoveries are made that involve concepts accessible to students at every level. Such an opportunity currently exists thanks to the fact that notes…
We study how the paradigm of Newton's science, based on the organization of scientific knowledge as a series of mathematical laws, was definitively accepted in science courses - in the last decades of the XVIII century, in England as well…
We analyze Hubble's approach to cosmology. In 1929 he accepted a finite expanding universe in order to explain the redshifts of distant galaxies. Later on he turned to an infinite stationary universe due to observational constraints. We…
In the late 1620s the Neapolitan telescope maker Francesco Fontana was the first to observe the sky using a telescope with two convex lenses, which he had manufactured himself. Fontana succeeded in drawing the most accurate maps of the…
Bruno Rossi is considered one of the fathers of modern physics, being also a pioneer in virtually every aspect of what is today called high-energy astrophysics. At the beginning of 1930s he was the pioneer of cosmic ray research in Italy,…
This paper looks at how ancient mathematicians (and especially the Pythagorean school) were faced by problems/paradoxes associated with the infinite which led them to juggle two systems of numbers: the discrete whole/rationals which were…
Universe structure emerges in the unreduced, complex-dynamical interaction process with the simplest initial configuration (two attracting homogeneous fields). The unreduced interaction analysis avoiding any perturbative model gives…