Related papers: Expanding space, quasars and St. Augustine's firew…
Although big bang cosmology effectively models even the most puzzling observational data, it offers no insight into why the cosmological expansion should occur at all. In this paper it is suggested that a finite Universe poses particular…
The Hubble law, determined from the distance modulii and redshifts of galaxies, for the past 80 years, has been used as strong evidence for an expanding universe. This claim is reviewed in light of the claimed lack of necessary evidence for…
The common attribute of all Big Bang cosmologies is that they are based on the assumption that the universe is expanding. However examination of the evidence for this expansion clearly favours a static universe. The major topics considered…
In this work, we analyze the cosmological model in which the expansion is driven by a classical, free Klein-Gordon field on a flat, four-dimensional Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker spacetime. The model allows for arbitrary mass,…
After a brief introduction to the sixteenth and seventeenth century views of the Universe and the nineteenth century paradox of Olbers, we start the history of the cosmic expansion with Hubble's epochal discovery of the recession velocities…
We elaborate on the proposal that the observed acceleration of the Universe is the result of the backreaction of cosmological perturbations, rather than the effect of a negative-pressure dark-energy fluid or a modification of general…
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…
Black holes are usually studied without including effects of the expanding universe. However in some recent studies black holes have been embedded in an expanding universe, in order to determine the interplay, if any, of these two dynamical…
Conditions for accelerated expansion of Friedmann-Robertson-Walker space-time are analyzed. Connection of this scenario with present-day observations are reviewed. It is explained how a scalar field could be responsible for cosmic…
The necessary and sufficient condition for the absence of particle horizons in a big bang Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe is provided. It happens to be a "smooth big bang" initial condition: the proper time derivative of the expansion…
The apparent superluminal growth in the size of a sufficiently large part of the universe can be ascribed to the special relativistic effect of time dilation.
The physical nature of the presently dominating enigmatic dark energy in the expanding universe is demonstrated to be explainable as an excess of the kinetic energy with respect to its potential energy. According to traditional Friedman…
Two interesting hypotheses about black holes have been proposed. The older one states that microscopic black holes can be accountable for the observed dark matter density. The newer one states that black holes are coupled to the expansion…
The discovery of high redshift quasars represents a challenge to the origin of supermassive black holes. Here, two evolutionary scenarios are considered. The first one concerns massive black holes in the local universe, which in a large…
The emergence of a highly improbable coincidence in cosmological observations speaks to a remarkably simple cosmic expansion. Compelling evidence now suggests that the Universe's gravitational horizon, coincident with the better known…
The recent observations on the far quasars absorption lines spectra and comparison of these lines with laboratory ones provide a framework for explantation of these observations by considering a varying fine structure constant, over the…
We show that modelling the universe as a pre-geometric system with emergent quantum modes, and then constructing the classical limit, we obtain a new account of space and gravity that goes beyond Newtonian gravity even in the…
Under the assumption that they are standard(isable) candles, the lightcurves of Type Ia supernovae have been analyzed in the framework of the standard Friedmann-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker cosmology to conclude that the expansion rate of…
Time-asymmetric spacetime structures, in particular those representing black holes and the expansion of the universe, are intimately related to other arrows of time, such as the second law and the retardation of radiation. The nature of the…
I will review some results of observational cosmology which critically cast doubt upon the foundations of the standard cosmology: 1) The redshifts of the galaxies are due to the expansion of the Universe; 2) The cosmic microwave background…