Related papers: Multiverses and Cosmology: Philosophical Issues
Physical cosmology tries to understand the Universe at large with its origin and evolution. Observational and experimental situations in cosmology do not allow us to proceed purely based on the empirical means. We examine in which sense our…
General relativity does not allow one to specify the topology of space, leaving the possibility that space is multi-- rather than simply--connected. We review the main mathematical properties of multi--connected spaces, and the different…
Recently, a new framework for describing the multiverse has been proposed which is based on the principles of quantum mechanics. The framework allows for well-defined predictions, both regarding global properties of the universe and…
Universe structure emerges in the unreduced, complex-dynamical interaction process with the simplest initial configuration (two attracting homogeneous fields). The unreduced interaction analysis avoiding any perturbative model gives…
The three cosmological conjectures to which our work refers are: the phenomenon called geodesic incompleteness, the physical gravitational $\theta_G$-term that would characterize the 1-parameter family of inequivalent vacua of quantum…
Despite the success of modern physics in formulating mathematical theories that can predict the outcome of experiments, we have made remarkably little progress towards answering the most fundamental question of: why is there a universe at…
The accelerated expansion of the universe is the most debatable cosmological scenario in the last two decades. Looking for the proper explanation of this scenario, researchers have presented a lot of proposals to discuss it. However,…
Our knowledge about the universe has increased tremendously in the last three decades or so --- thanks to the progress in observations --- but our understanding has improved very little. There are several fundamental questions about our…
We argue that the total number of distinguishable locally Friedmann universes generated by eternal inflation is proportional to the exponent of the entropy of inflationary perturbations and is limited by e^{e^{3 N}}, where N is the number…
Hypothetical existence of other universes gives an opportunity not only to extend the scope of physics, but the scope of biology, SETI, and METI as well. Some steps of the development of alien life concept shall be briefly summarized, then…
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…
Arising out of an attempt at a new foundations of mathematics, in which relations are more primitive than sets, and out of the theoretical physicists' concept of underlying causes of empirical phenomena, the idea of a purely mathematical…
Recently, it has been noticed that the amplification of the amplitude of curvature perturbation cycle by cycle can lead to a cyclic multiverse scenario, in which the number of universes increases cycle by cycle. However, this amplification…
It is commonplace in discussions of modern cosmology to assert that the early universe began in a special state. Conventionally, cosmologists characterize this fine-tuning in terms of the horizon and flatness problems. I argue that the…
Where does it all come from? Where are we going? Are we alone in the universe? What is good and what is evil? The scientific narrative of cosmic evolution demands that we tackle such big questions with a cosmological perspective. I tackle…
We give a consistent description of how the inflationary Universe emerges in quantum cosmology. This involves two steps: Firstly, it is shown that a sensible probability peak can be obtained from the cosmological wave function. This is…
We review the broad status of cosmology and discuss a model of fluctuational cosmology in which the universe is created in a phase transition like phenomenon mimicking inflation, and which further consistently explains latest observations…
Rich clusters of galaxies, the largest virialized systems known, provide a powerful tool for the study of cosmology. Some of the fundamental questions that can be addressed with clusters of galaxies include: how did galaxies and large-scale…
We argue that the many-worlds of quantum mechanics and the many worlds of the multiverse are the same thing, and that the multiverse is necessary to give exact operational meaning to probabilistic predictions from quantum mechanics.…
The origin of the large scale structure in the universe - galaxies, quasars, clusters, voids, sheets - is one of the most important questions in cosmology. One can show that some non-thermal energy density fluctuations must have been…