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Einstein's theory of general relativity models the physical universe using spacetimes which satisfy Einstein's gravitational field equations. To date, Einstein's theory has been enormously successful in modeling observed gravitational…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2016-10-21 James Isenberg

What does ``Big Bang" mean? What was the actual origin of these two words? There are many aspects hidden under this name, which are seldom explained. They are discussed here. To frame the analysis, help will be sought from the highly…

Popular Physics · Physics 2026-02-16 Emilio Elizalde

A nonvanishing cosmological term in Einstein's equations implies a nonvanishing spacetime curvature even in absence of any kind of matter. It would, in consequence, affect many of the underlying kinematic tenets of physical theory. The…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2009-11-10 R. Aldrovandi , J. P. Beltran Almeida , J. G. Pereira

Theoretical arguments and cosmological observations suggest that Einstein's theory of general relativity needs to be modified at high energies. One of the best motivated higher-curvature extensions of general relativity is…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2017-08-04 Laura Sberna

We give an introduction to the cosmological multiverse, aimed at an audience of artists. We discuss general relativity -- our modern theory of gravity -- and the cosmological constant, which is widely believed to be responsible for the…

Popular Physics · Physics 2026-05-27 Oliver Janssen

To explain the accelerated expansion of late universe, the 1/R correction to Einstein gravity is usually considered, where R is the Ricci scalar. This correction term is generally believed to be negligible in the early universe. However, if…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2014-11-20 Shi Pi , Tower Wang

We modify the Einstein-Schrodinger theory to include a cosmological constant $\Lambda_z$ which multiplies the symmetric metric, and we show how the theory can be easily coupled to additional fields. The cosmological constant $\Lambda_z$ is…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2008-11-26 J. A. Shifflett

We provide an epistemological analysis of the developments of relativistic cosmology from 1917 to 2006, based on the seminal articles by Einstein, de Sitter, Friedmann, Lemaitre, Hubble, Gamow and other main historical figures of the field.…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Jean-Pierre Luminet

We critically revisit Einstein's 1905 heuristic argument for lightquanta, considering its internal coherence and the scope of its applicability. We argue that Einstein's reasoning, often celebrated for its originality, is ambiguous because…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2026-02-12 Enric Pérez , Antonio Gil

Einstein identified singularities in spacetimes, such as at the Schwarzschild radius, where later relativists only find a coordinate system assigning multiple values to a single spacetime event. These differing judgments derive from…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2024-08-07 John D. Norton

The 1927 discovery of the expansion of the Universe by Lemaitre was published in French in a low-impact journal. In the 1931 high-impact English translation of this article a critical equation was changed by omitting reference to what is…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2011-06-08 Sidney van den Bergh

Normalizing the Einstein-Hilbert action by the volume functional makes the theory invariant under constant shifts in the Lagrangian. The associated field equations then resemble unimodular gravity whose otherwise arbitrary cosmological…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2017-04-06 Aharon Davidson , Shimon Rubin

The Einstein postulates assert an invariance of the propagation speed of light in vacuum for any observer, and which amounts to a presumed absence of any preferred frame. The postulates appear to be directly linked to relativistic effects…

General Physics · Physics 2007-08-07 Reginald T. Cahill

Observations indicate that our universe is characterized by a late-time accelerating phase, possibly driven by a cosmological constant $\Lambda$, with the dimensionless parameter $\Lambda L_P^2 \simeq 10^{-122}$, where $L_P = (G \hbar…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2014-06-04 T. Padmanabhan , Hamsa Padmanabhan

In the field equations of Einstein-Cartan theory with cosmological constant a static spherically symmetric perfect fluid with spin density satisfying the Weyssenhoff restriction is considered. This serves as a rough model of space filled…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2007-05-23 Christian G. Boehmer

Cosmology, as a science, started at the beginning of the last century with the advent of the Einstein cosmological equations. Based on these equations, the present main stream cosmological model is the well known big-bang, this name…

General Physics · Physics 2011-02-08 Antonio Alfonso-Faus

The discovery that the Universe is accelerating in its expansion has brought the basic concept of cosmic expansion into question. An analysis of the evolution of this concept suggests that the paradigm that was finally settled into prior to…

History and Philosophy of Physics · Physics 2014-09-12 Daryl Janzen

Recent observations of distant supernovae imply, in defiance of expectations, that the universe growth is accelerating, contrary to what has always been assumed that the expansion is slowing down due to gravity. In this paper a…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 M. Carmeli , S. Behar

The Stringy Uncertainty relations, and corrections thereof, were explicitly derived recently from the New Relativity Principle that treats all dimensions and signatures on the same footing and which is based on the postulate that the Planck…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2015-06-25 Carlos Castro

The mystery of the cosmological constant is probably the most pressing obstacle to significantly improving the models of elementary particle physics derived from string theory. The problem arises because in the standard framework of low…

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology · Physics 2007-05-23 Edward Witten