Related papers: Reconstructing the Universe in a computer: physica…
Recent years have seen dramatic progress in cosmology and particle astrophysics. So much so that anyone who dares to offer an overview would certainly risk him- or herself for being incomplete and biased at best, and even incorrect due to…
The recent observational evidence for the acceleration of the universe demonstrates that canonical theories of cosmology and particle physics are incomplete - if not incorrect - and that new physics is out there, waiting to be discovered.…
The program of reconstructing quantum theory based on information-theoretic principles enjoys much popularity in the foundations of physics. Surprisingly, this endeavor has only received very little attention in philosophy. Here I argue…
The changes of main paradigms on the structure and evolution of the Universe are reviewed. Two puzzles of the modern cosmology, the mean density of matter and the regularity of the Universe on large scales, as well as the possibility to…
As observers of the universe we are physical systems within it. If the universe is very large in space and/or time, the probability becomes significant that the data on which we base predictions is replicated at other locations in…
This is a review article for The Review of Particle Physics 2014 (aka the Particle Data Book). It forms a compact review of knowledge of the cosmological parameters at the beginning of 2014. Topics included are Parametrizing the Universe;…
This article is the written version of the closing talk presented at the conference `A Century of Cosmology' held at San Servolo, Italy, in August 2007. I focus on the prospects of constraining fundamental physics from cosmological…
The rather unintuitive nature of quantum theory has led numerous people to develop sets of (physically motivated) principles that can be used to derive quantum mechanics from the ground up, in order to better understand where the structure…
The following conversation is partly based on an interview that took place in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in July 2013.
This paper briefly reviews some of the exciting studies of the local Universe that will be enabled with the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). As illustrative examples, it summarizes a few of the scientific goals that have been set…
Since we cannot put stars in a laboratory, astrophysicists had to wait till the invention of computers before becoming laboratory scientists. For half a century now, we have been conducting experiments in our virtual laboratories. However,…
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…
The kinematics and dynamic interpretation of the cosmological expansion is reviewed in a widely accessible manner with emphasis on the acceleration aspect. Virtually all the approaches that can in principle account for the accelerated…
Computation has changed the world more than any previous expressions of knowledge. In its particular algorithmic embodiment, it offers a perspective, within which the digital computer (one of many possible) exercises a role reminiscent of…
Astronomy provides a laboratory for extreme physics, a window into environments at extremes of distance, temperature and density that often can't be reproduced in Earth laboratories, or at least not right away. A surprising amount of the…
This article provides an overview of the history, theoretical basis, and different implementations of quantum computers. In Fall 2018, four MIT faculty -- Isaac Chuang, Dirk Englund, Aram Harrow, and William Oliver -- at the forefront of…
This article reviews recent developments in the study of universes with a positive cosmological constant in string theory.
To be published in the proceedings of IAU Symposium 239 "Convection in Astrophysics" (ed. F. Kupka, I. W. Roxburgh, K. L. Chan). Content: 1. From Nice to Prague, 2. The triumph of 3-D simulations, 3. How to lower the cost - what else can be…
There is one, and only one way, consistent with fundamental physics, that the efficiency of general digital computation can continue increasing indefinitely, and that is to apply the principles of reversible computing. We need to begin…
Since its inception at the beginning of the twentieth century, quantum mechanics has challenged our conceptions of how the universe ought to work; however, the equations of quantum mechanics can be too computationally difficult to solve…