Related papers: Scientific Realism and Primordial Cosmology
Valid ideas that physical reality is vastly larger than human perception of it, and that the perceived part may not be representative of the whole, exist on many levels and have a long history. After a brief general inventory of those ideas…
Cosmology is very exciting for three reasons. There is a very successful standard model - the hot big bang - which describes the evolution of the Universe from 10^{-2} sec onward. There are bold ideas, foremost among them are inflation and…
For two decades the hot big-bang model has 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 addressed by the standard cosmology and…
How did it all begin? Although this question has undoubtedly lingered for as long as humans have walked the Earth, the answer still eludes us. Yet since my grandparents were born, scientists have been able to refine this question to a…
This is a very comprehensible review of some key issues in Modern Cosmology. Simple mathematical examples and analogies are always used, whenever available. The starting point is the well know Big Bang Cosmology (BBC). We deal with the…
First, this paper broaches the definition of science and the epistemic yield of tenets and approaches: phenomenological (descriptive only), well-founded (solid first principles, conducive to deep understanding), provisional (falsifiable if…
Cosmology as an exact physical science is of new date, but it has long roots in the past. This essay is concerned with four important themes in the history of cosmological thought which, if taken together, offer a fairly comprehensive…
Understanding the behavior of the universe at large depends critically on insights about the smallest units of matter and their fundamental interactions. Inflationary cosmology is a highly successful framework for exploring these…
Primordial nucleosynthesis remains as one of the pillars of modern cosmology. It is the testing ground upon which many cosmological models must ultimately rest. It is our only probe of the universe during the important radiation-dominated…
Determining the initial state of the universe is a challenging problem in quantum cosmology and we argue that the issue is intractable if the basic postulates of quantum mechanics are not modified in a nontrivial way. Namely a "standard"…
I discuss some central issues in particle physics which are potentially relevant to cosmology. I first briefly review the present (glorious) experimental status of the Standard Model, emphasizing that it provides a firm foundation both for…
Cosmology and particle physics are deeply interrelated. Among the common problems are dark energy, dark matter and baryon asymmetry of the Universe. We discuss these problems in general terms, and concentrate on several particular…
Cosmic inflation is arguably the most favoured paradigm of the very early Universe. It postulates an early phase of fast, nearly exponential, and accelerated expansion. Inflationary models are capable of explaining the overall flatness and…
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…
Multiverse scenarios in cosmology assume that other universes exist "beyond" our own universe. They are an exciting challenge both for empirical and theoretical research as well as for philosophy of science. They could be necessary to…
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…
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…
The inflationary scenario has become the paradigm of early universe cosmology, and - in conjuction with ideas from superstring theory - has led to speculations about an "inflationary multiverse". From a point of view of phenomenology, the…
Physical cosmology tries to understand the Universe at large with its origin and evolution. Observational and experimental situations in cosmology do not allow us to proceed purely based on the empirical means. We examine in which sense our…
The established cosmological theory which describes the history of the Universe since shortly after the "Big Bang" until today is remarkably successful. Thanks to the increasing precision of available observational data, we are now able to…