Related papers: Georges Lema\^itre: Life, Science and Legacy
Detlef D\"urr (1951-2021) was a theoretical and mathematical physicist who worked particularly on the foundations of quantum mechanics, electromagnetism, and statistical mechanics. This piece is a rather personal look back at him and his…
Exactly a century ago, wave quantum mechanics was born in Arosa, Switzerland. Erwin Schr\"{o}dinger was vacationing in this classic Swiss Alps town at Christmas 1925 when he made his breakthrough discovery of the wave equation…
Georges Lemaitre gave a theoretical proof for his 1927 doctoral thesis in astronomy that the maximum spherical radius of our Universe can be computed from first principles to be 14.2 billion light-years (Lemaitre 1927a). That estimate,…
The cultural infrastructure that let Galileo invent the modern physics is discussed. The key new element of modern physics was firm belief in its fundamental structure, which could be expressed in the double postulate: 1) There are…
A short phenomenological account of the genesis and evolution of the universe is presented with emphasis on the primordial phases as well as its physical composition, i.e. dark matter and dark energy. We discuss Einstein's theory of General…
The cosmological constant was proposed 100 years ago in order to make the model of static Universe, imagined then by most scientists, possible. Today it is the main candidate for the physical essence causing the observed accelerated…
The Fermi bubbles, two giant structures above and below the Galactic center (GC), are among the most important discoveries of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Studying their physical origin has been providing valuable insights into…
Every society has a story rooted in its most ancient traditions, of how the earth and sky originated. Most of these stories attribute the origin of all things to a Creator - whether God, Element or Idea. We first recall that in the Western…
Why is it interesting to try to understand the origin of the universe? Everything we observe today, including our existence, arose from that event. Although we still do not have a theory that allows us to describe the origin itself, the…
In memory of the famous physicist Bruno Pontecorvo, whereof is just occurred the centenary anniversary of the birth and the twentieth anniversary of the death, this paper traces the scientific and human adventure of the italian scientist,…
Freeman J. Dyson, a brilliant theoretical physicist and a gifted mathematician, passed away on 28 February 2020 at the age of 96. A vignette of his outstanding contributions to physical sciences, ranging from the subject of quantum…
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation provides a remarkable window onto the early universe, revealing its composition and structure. In these lectures we review and discuss the physics underlying the main features of the CMB.
Stirling Colgate was a remarkably imaginative physicist, an independent thinker with a wide breadth of interests and contagious enthusiasm, a born leader with enduring drive to attack fundamental problems in science. Among his many…
Naturally occurring nuclear reactors existed in uranium deposits on Earth long before Enrico Fermi built the first man-made nuclear reactor beneath Staggs Field in 1942. In the story of their discovery, there are important lessons to be…
In the late nineteenth century, Antoine Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity and thus the physics of weak interactions, well before atomic and quantum physics was known. The different types of radioactive decay, alpha, beta, and gamma…
The Varenna school is a hub where generations of physicists, including numerous Nobel laureates, have shaped the field, often through collaborative exchanges across political and cultural boundaries. We examine the scientific legacy of…
Although not laying claim to being the inventor of the light microscope, Antonj van Leeuwenhoek, (1632-1723) was arguably the first person to bring this new technological wonder of the age properly to the attention of natural scientists…
Since Hubble and Lamaitre's discovery of the expanding universe using galaxies till the recent discovery of the accelerating universe using standard candles, direct measurements of the evolution of the scale factor of the universe a(t) have…
The initial conditions of our Universe can be summarized on a single sheet of paper. Yet the Universe is full of complex structures today, such as stars, galaxies and groups of galaxies. In this review I describe the standard theoretical…
The Universe is the grandest conceivable scale on which the human mind can strive to understand nature. The amazing aspect of cosmology, the branch of science that attempts to understand the origin and evolution of the Universe, is that it…