Related papers: On Under-determination in cosmology
Over the past decades, advancements in observational cosmology have introduced us in an era of precision cosmology, dramatically enhancing our understanding of the Universe's history as well as bringing new tensions to light. Observations…
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…
These notes are intended as an introductory course for experimental particle physicists interested in the recent developments in astrophysics and cosmology. I will describe the standard Big Bang theory of the evolution of the universe, with…
For two decades the hot big-bang model as been referred to as the standard cosmology -- and for good reason. For just as long cosmologists have known that there are fundamental questions that are not answered by the standard cosmology and…
In the era of precision cosmology, even percentage level effects are significant on cosmological observables. The recent tension between the local and global values of $H_0$ is much more significant than this, and any possible solution…
Observational cosmology is in its "golden age" with a vast amount of recent data on the distribution of matter and light in the universe. This data can be used to probe theories of the very early universe. It is small amplitude cosmological…
The assumption that a complete description of an early state of the universe does not privilege any position or direction in space leads to a unified account of probability in cosmology, macroscopic physics, and quantum mechanics. Such a…
In these lectures I review the present status of the so-called Standard Cosmological Model, based on the hot Big Bang Theory and the Inflationary Paradigm. I will make special emphasis on the recent developments in observational cosmology,…
The scientific status of physical cosmology has been the subject of philosophical debate ever since detailed mathematical models of the Universe emerged from Einstein's general theory of relativity. Such debates have revolved around whether…
We provide a discussion of some main ideas in our project about the physical foundation of the time concept in cosmology. It is standard to point to the Planck scale (located at $\sim 10^{-43}$ seconds after a fictitious "Big Bang" point)…
It is argued that some of the recent claims for cosmology are grossly overblown. Cosmology rests on a very small database: it suffers from many fundamental difficulties as a science (if it is a science at all) whilst observations of distant…
The possibility of having an extension of the cosmological standard model with a Hubble expansion rate $H$ constrained to a finite interval is considered. Two periods of accelerated expansion arise naturally when the Hubble expansion rate…
In the standard cosmological theory one uses the Einstein concepts of space and time as were originally introduced for the special theory of relativity and the general relativity theory. According to this approach all physical quantities…
A comparison of the standard models in particle physics and in cosmology demonstrates that they are not compatible, though both are well established. Basics of modern cosmology are briefly reviewed. It is argued that the measurements of the…
This paper presents a necessarily incomplete review of the evolution of cosmology since the first Astro/Cosmo Moriond meeting in 1981. I trace the journey from the classical Big Bang model based on three pillars -- universe expansion,…
[Abridged] Some cosmological theories propose that the observable universe is a small part of a much larger universe in which parameters describing the low-energy laws of physics vary from region to region. How can we reasonably assess a…
The hot big-bang cosmology provides a reliable accounting of the Universe from about $10^{-2}\sec$ after the bang until the present, as well as a robust framework for speculating back to times as early as $10^{-43}\sec$. Cosmology faces a…
Over the last 20 years, supernovae have become a key tool to constrain the expansion history of the Universe through the construction of Hubble diagrams, using luminosity distances to supernovae belonging to the "Ia" subtype. This technique…
A basic modern picture of the universe is given here. The lectures start from the historical ideas of a static universe. Then I move on to Newtonian cosmology and derive the main cosmological equations in the framework of Newtonian…
The good agreement between large-scale observations and the predictions of the now-standard $\Lambda$CDM theory gives us hope that this will become a lasting foundation for cosmology. After briefly reviewing the current status of the key…