Related papers: Hubble's Nobel Prize
Scientists pursue collective knowledge, but they also seek personal recognition from their peers. When scientists decide whether or not to work on a big new problem, they weigh the potential rewards of a major discovery against the costs of…
We present a brief qualitative overview of the current state of the problem of Hubble expansion at the sufficiently small scales (e.g., in planetary systems or local intergalactic volume). The crucial drawbacks of the available theoretical…
Online bibliographic databases have enabled new research through which bibliographic records are analyzed as data about science. Within these records, the acknowledgements sections of papers are often used to draw conclusions about funding…
The Hubble constant $H_0$ is the value of the cosmic expansion rate at one time (the present), and cannot be adjusted successfully without taking into account the entire expansion history and cosmology. We outline some conditions, that if…
We give an estimate of the gravitational field of force exerted on a test particle by the far galaxies, in the frame of the weak field approximation. In virtue of Hubble's law, the action of the far matter turns out to be non negligible,…
The modern usage of the words astronomy and astrology is traced back to distinctions, largely ignored in recent scholarship. Three interpretations of celestial phenomena (in a geometric, a substantialist and a prognostic versions) coexisted…
Planck will be the first mission to map the entire cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky with mJy sensitivity and resolution better than 10'. The science enabled by such a mission spans many areas of astrophysics and cosmology. In…
Most scientists would hold that science has not established that the cosmos is physically comprehensible - i.e. such that there is some as-yet undiscovered true physical theory of everything that is unified. This is an empirically…
A hundred years ago, two British expeditions measured the deflection of starlight by the sun's gravitational field, confirming the prediction made by Einstein's General theory of Relativity. One hundred years later many physicists around…
In the period from about 1890 to 1915 an interdisciplinary and unifying research programme known as "cosmical physics" attracted much scientific and public attention. It typically included aspects of the earth sciences (such as magnetic…
We use the Hartle-Hawking No-Boundary Proposal to make a comparison between the probabilities of the universe starting near, and at, the top of a hill in the effective potential. In the context of top-down cosmology, our calculation finds…
This essay is a nontechnical primer for a broader audience, in which I paint a broad-brush picture of modern cosmology. I begin by reviewing the evidence for the big bang, including the expansion of our Universe, the cosmic microwave…
Attempts to measure extragalactic distances over the last 90 years are briefly described. It follows a short history of the discovery of the expansion of space. Reasons are discussed for the decrease of the Hubble constant from Ho~500…
In his Nobel Prize lecture Victor Hess urged that different instruments, working together, should be used to solve the problem of the origin of cosmic rays. I review some of the key developments that have opened up the new fields of direct…
Scientific research funding is allocated largely through a system of soliciting and ranking competitive grant proposals. In these competitions, the proposals themselves are not the deliverables that the funder seeks, but instead are used by…
This paper presents a review of the history, motivation and current status of high energy neutrino telescopes. Many years after these detectors were first conceived, the operation of kilometer-cubed scale detectors is finally on the horizon…
Neutrino astronomy has entered an exciting time with the completion of the first km3-scale neutrino telescope at the South Pole (IceCube) and the successful operation of the first under-sea neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean (Antares).…
Europe and a number of countries in the world are investing significant amounts of public money to operate and maintain large, ground-based astronomical facilities. Even larger projects are under development to observe the faintest and most…
The recently unveiled deep-field images from the James Webb Space Telescope have renewed interest in what we can and cannot see of the universe. Answering these questions requires understanding the so-called "cosmological horizons" and the…
Purpose: Science is subject to a normative structure that includes how the contributions and interactions between scientists are rewarded. Authorship and citations have been the key elements within the reward system of science, whereas…