Related papers: Big Bang Cosmology and Religious Thought
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…
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…
Ninety years ago, in 1922, Alexander Friedman (1888-1925) demonstrated for the first time that the General Relativity equations admit non-static solutions and thus the Universe may expand, contract, collapse, and even be born. The…
Georges Lemaitre was a remarkable contributor to the advancement of cosmology in the heady years following two great revolutions in theoretical physics in the last century: general relativity and quantum mechanics. In the present century,…
I give an epistemological analysis of the developments of relativistic cosmology from 1917 to 1966, based on the seminal articles by Einstein, de Sitter, Friedmann, Lemaitre, Hubble, Gamow and other historical figures of the field. It…
This paper celebrates the remarkable life, science and legacy of Abb\'e Georges Lema\^itre, the Belgian cleric and professor of physics; he was the architect of the fireworks model for the origin of the universe. He died half a century ago,…
The first part of this paper contains a brief description of the beginnings of modern cosmology, which, the author will argue, was most likely born in the Year 1912. Some of the pieces of evidence presented here have emerged from recent…
Scientific cosmology has now reached its period of maturity with the establishment of a standard model, which is the theory of an expanding universe. The question of whether this expansion resolves itself, in the past, into a singularity…
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.…
In this essay a critical review of present conceptual problems in current cosmology is provided from a more philosophical point of view. In essence, a digression on how could philosophy help cosmologists in what is strictly their…
This review devoted to the centenary of Alexander Friedmann's prediction of the Universe expansion presents the results obtained by him in 1922 and 1924 and the sketch of their further developments. Special attention is paid to the role of…
Did the universe have a beginning or does it exist forever, i.e. is it eternal at least in relation to the past? This fundamental question was a main topic in ancient philosophy of nature and the Middle Ages. Philosophically it was more or…
Some Christian apologists, notably William Lane Craig, have championed something called the kalam cosmological argument for the existence of God. One version of the argument leans heavily on the claim that the existence of an actual…
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…
In recent centuries the world has become increasingly dominated by empirical evidence and theoretic science in developing worldviews. Advances in science have dictated Roman Catholic doctrine such as the acceptance of Darwinian evolution…
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…
For two decades the hot big-bang model has been referred to as the standard cosmology -- and for good reason. For just as long cosmologists have known that there are fundamental questions that are not addressed by the standard cosmology and…
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…
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…
For two decades the hot big-bang model as been referred to as the standard cosmology -- and for good reason. For just as long cosmologists have known that there are fundamental questions that are not answered by the standard cosmology and…