Related papers: Big Bang Cosmology and Religious Thought
A simple and surprisingly realistic model of the origin of the universe can be developed using the Friedmann equation from general relativity, elementary quantum mechanics, and the experimental values of h, c, G and the proton mass. The…
This is an editorial note to accompany reprinting as a Golden Oldie in the Journal of General Relativity and Gravitation of the famous note by Georges Lemaitre on the quantum birth of the universe, published in Nature in 1931. We explain…
Who discovered the expanding universe? Was it Hubble, or Lema\^itre, or was it just the end result of a long series of investigations? In this article we summarise the main steps and contributions that led to one of the most exciting…
One of the most striking examples for the production of particles out of the quantum vacuum due to external conditions is cosmological particle creation, which is caused by the expansion or contraction of the Universe. Already in 1939,…
In this letter we will revise the steps followed by A. Einstein when he first wrote on cosmology from the point of view of the general theory of relativity. We will argue that his insightful line of thought leading to the introduction of…
A brief historical account of modern cosmology shows that the standard big bang (BB) model, believed by so many, does not have the strong observational foundations that are frequently claimed for it. The theory of the Quasi-Steady State…
We propose that at the beginning of the universe gravity existed in a limbo either because it was switched off or because it was only conformally coupled to all particles. This picture can be reverse-engineered from the requirement that the…
In this paper we discuss the initial state of the universe at the Big Bang. By using ideas of Freedman in the proof of the disk embedding theorem for 4-manifolds, we describe the corresponding spacetime as gravitational instanton. The…
Inflationary Cosmology makes the universe ``eternal" and provides for recurrent universe creation, ad infinitum -- making it also plausible to assume that ``our" Big Bang was also preceeded by others, etc.. However, GR tells us that in the…
The presently accepted "Theory of the Universe" was pioneered 60 years ago by Gamow, Alpher and Herman. As a consequence of the, later dubbed, Hot Big-Bang, matter was neutrons, and after some decay protons, and a history of successive…
In this review article we compare the recent work of Peter Lynds, "On a finite universe with no beginning or end", with that of Stephen Hawking, primarily "Quantum Cosmology, M-Theory, and the Anthropic Principle", and two foundational…
On the orthodox interpretation of bounce cosmologies, a preceding universe was compressed to a small size before ``bouncing'' to form the present expanding universe. William Lane Craig and James Sinclair have argued that the orthodox…
Subject of this article is the relationship between modern cosmology and fundamental physics, in particular general relativity as a theory of gravity on one side, together with its unique application in cosmology, and the formation of…
With his General Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein produced a revolution in our conception of reality and of the knowledge we can obtain from it. This revolution can be viewed from philosophy as leading to one of the great paradigms in…
Albert Einstein visited Spain only once, precisely one hundred years ago. The circumstances, of a very different kind, of this visit will be explained here. In special, some important events happened to Einstein during that period, which,…
The world view suggested by quantum cosmology is that inflating universes with all possible values of the fundamental constants are spontaneously created out of nothing. I explore the consequences of the assumption that we are a `typical'…
The common attribute of all Big Bang cosmologies is that they are based on the assumption that the universe is expanding. However examination of the evidence for this expansion clearly favours a static universe. The major topics considered…
The beautiful scenario of pre-big-bang cosmology is appealling not only because it is more or less derived from string theory, but also because it separates clearly the problem of the initial conditions for the universe from that of high…
In the early-mid 20$^{\rm th}$ century Dirac and Zel'dovich were among the first scientists to suggest an intimate connection between cosmology and atomic physics. Though a revolutionary proposal for its time, Dirac's Large Number…
In a previous work [1], it was speculated that the lack of homogeneity of the large-scale structure of the universe may be due to quantum fluctuations of space in the early universe. In [1], this was argued for a Friedmann-type universe for…