Related papers: Lessons from Mayan Astronomy
Cosmology contributes a good deal to the investigation of variation of fundamental physical constants. High resolution data is available and allows for detailed analysis over cosmological distances and a multitude of methods were developed.…
Modern scientific cosmology pushes the boundaries of knowledge and the knowable. This is prompting questions on the nature of scientific knowledge. A central issue is what defines a 'good' model. When addressing global properties of the…
Cultural astronomy is an interdisciplinary area of research that studies how perceptions and concepts related to the sky are part of the worldview of a culture. One of its branches, archaeoastronomy, focuses on the material remains of past…
Studies in Australian Indigenous astronomical knowledge reveal few accounts of the visible planets in the sky. However, what information we do have tells us that Aboriginal people were close observers of planets and their motions, noting…
Modern scientific data mainly consist of huge datasets gathered by a very large number of techniques and stored in very diversified and often incompatible data repositories. More in general, in the e-science environment, it is considered as…
We are pleased to present a Special Section on Statistics and Astronomy in this issue of the The Annals of Applied Statistics. Astronomy is an observational rather than experimental science; as a result, astronomical data sets both small…
Nowadays there is no field research which is not flooded with data. Among the sciences, Astrophysics has always been driven by the analysis of massive amounts of data. The development of new and more sophisticated observation facilities,…
In order to account for the observable Universe, any comprehensive theory or model of cosmology must draw from many disciplines of physics, including gauge theories of strong and weak interactions, the hydrodynamics and microphysics of…
Most major discoveries in astronomy are unplanned, and result from surveying the Universe in a new way, rather than by testing a hypothesis or conducting an investigation with planned outcomes. For example, of the 10 greatest discoveries…
Galactic archaeology represents a multidisciplinary approach aimed at unraveling the intricate history of the Milky Way galaxy through the study of its stellar populations. This abstract delves into the significance of galactic archaeology…
Cosmological discoveries over the past century have completely changed our picture of our place in the universe. New observations have a realistic chance of probing nature on heretofore unimaginable scales, and as a result are changing the…
Our knowledge about the universe has increased tremendously in the last three decades or so --- thanks to the progress in observations --- but our understanding has improved very little. There are several fundamental questions about our…
Indigenous Knowledge is important for Indigenous communities across the globe and for the advancement of our general scientific knowledge. In particular, Indigenous astronomical knowledge integrates many aspects of Indigenous Knowledge,…
To flourish in the new data-intensive environment of 21st century science, we need to evolve new skills. These can be expressed in terms of the systemized framework that formed the basis of mediaeval education - the trivium (logic, grammar,…
I critically review a methodology of using clusters of galaxies as cosmological probes. The understanding of the abundances and spatial correlations of dark matter halos has been significantly advanced especially for a last few years.…
Most scientific data will never be directly examined by scientists; rather it will be put into online databases where it will be analyzed and summarized by computer programs. Scientists increasingly see their instruments through online…
Certain results of observational cosmology cast critical doubt on the foundations of standard cosmology but leave most cosmologists untroubled. Alternative cosmological models that differ from the Big Bang have been published and defended…
Astronomical observations already produce vast amounts of data through a new generation of telescopes that cannot be analyzed manually. Next-generation telescopes such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and the Square Kilometer Array…
Anomalies drive scientific discovery -- they are associated with the cutting edge of the research frontier, and thus typically exploit data in the low signal-to-noise regime. In astronomy, the prevalence of systematics --- both "known…
Recent X-ray observations have had a major impact on topics ranging from protostars to cosmology. They have also drawn attention to important and general physical processes that currently limit our understanding of thermal and nonthermal…