Related papers: Fine-Tuning, Complexity, and Life in the Multivers…
The transformation of organic molecules into the simplest self-replicating living system,a microorganism, is accomplished from a unique event or rare events that occurred early in the Universe. The subsequent dispersal on cosmic scales and…
If our universe has appeared in a result of Big Bang or something like this, whether we have reasons to deny an existence of other universes appearing by the same or similar way? An objection that there is no anything like it, is doubtful,…
Over the past century, rooted in the theory of general relativity, cosmology has developed a very successful physical model of the universe: the {\em big-bang model}. Its construction followed different stages to incorporate nuclear…
How is the universe organized on large scales? How did this structure evolve from the unknown initial conditions of a rather smooth early universe to the present time? The answers to these questions will shed light on the cosmology we live…
Catalogues of galaxies, clusters of galaxies and superclusters - sources of information to study the large-scale structure of the Universe are reviewed. The power spectrum of density perturbations, and the correlation function are discussed…
We investigate the dependence of elemental abundances on physical constants, and the implications this has for the distribution of complex life for various proposed habitability criteria. We consider three main sources of abundance…
Observations of microwave background fluctuations can yield information not only about the geometry of the universe, but potentially about the topology of the universe. If the universe is negatively curved, then the characteristic scale for…
Many of life's most fascinating phenomena emerge from interactions among many elements--many amino acids determine the structure of a single protein, many genes determine the fate of a cell, many neurons are involved in shaping our thoughts…
Recent detections of potentially habitable exoplanets around sunlike stars demand increased exploration of the physical conditions that can sustain life, by whatever methods available. Insight into these conditions can be gained by…
Challenges due to the rapid urbanization of the world -- especially in emerging countries -- range from an increasing dependence on energy, to air pollution, socio-spatial inequalities, environmental and sustainability issues. Modelling the…
Physical properties of stars such as luminosity, surface temperature, distance, or mass are measured from observations. These physical properties are of paramount importance to understand how stars are born, live, and die in the universe…
It is fair to say that the deepest mystery in our understanding of nature is the birth of our universe. Much of the dilemma over the last decades comes from the extraordinarily small probability that the universe started with the high…
The large amount of data on galaxies, up to higher and higher redshifts, asks for sophisticated statistical approaches to build adequate classifications. Multivariate cluster analyses, that compare objects for their global similarities, are…
This is the first part of a survey whose ultimate purpose is to clarify the significance of the famous coincidence between the Hubble age of the universe and a certain combination of microphysical parameters. In this part the way is…
In 2011, I published a popular-level book, The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: Why the Universe is Not Designed for Us. It investigated a common claim found in contemporary religious literature that the parameters of physics and cosmology are so…
Complex systems are characterized by specific time-dependent interactions among their many constituents. As a consequence they often manifest rich, non-trivial and unexpected behavior. Examples arise both in the physical and non-physical…
In this chapter I give an overall description of the structure and evolution of stars of different masses, and review the main ingredients included in state-of-the-art calculations aiming at reproducing observational features. I give…
The universe we observe is homogeneous on super-horizon scales, leading to the ``cosmic homogeneity problem''. Inflation alleviates this problem but cannot solve it within the realm of conservative extrapolations of classical physics. A…
In this paper we first show that the usual three dimensionality of space, which is taken for granted, results from the spinorial behaviour of Fermions, which constitute the material content of the universe. It is shown that the resulting…
The traditional "explanation" for the observed acceleration of the universe is the existence of a positive cosmological constant. However, this can hardly be a truly convincing explanation, as an expanding universe is not expected to have a…