Related papers: Excess Baggage
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…
Old and new puzzles of cosmology are reexamined from the point of view of quantum theory of the universe developed here. It is shown that in proposed approach the difficulties of the standard cosmology do not arise. The theory predicts the…
In this paper, we investigate an important issue addressed by several approaches to quantum cosmology, like that based on loop quantum gravity and string theory: the existence of an arrow of time driving the cosmological evolution according…
Quantum cosmology has traditionally been studied at the level of symmetry-reduced minisuperspace models, analyzing the behavior of wave functions. However, in the absence of a complete full setting of quantum gravity and detailed knowledge…
It is widely accepted that temporal asymmetry is largely a cosmological problem; the task of explaining temporal asymmetry reduces in the main to that of explaining an aspect of the condition of the early universe. However, cosmologists who…
We note that in general there exist two basic aspects in any branch of physics, including cosmology - one dealing with the attributes of basic constituents and forces of nature, the other dealing with how structures arise from them and how…
Quantum theory describes our universe incredibly successfully. To our classically-inclined brains, however, it is a bizarre description that requires a re-imagining of what fundamental reality, or "ontology", could look like. This thesis…
This is the first expression of my thoughts and my experiments with Nature about the mathematical description of the Universe. The theories about our surrounding Nature became popular from our ancient civilizations and may be from the…
A specific theoretical framework is important for designing and conducting an experiment, and for interpretation of its results. The field of gravitational physics is expanding, and more clarity is needed. It appears that some popular…
Current theories of particle physics lead to the unavoidable conclusion that there must have been several phase transitions in the early universe. Further, in the context of these theories, it is possible that cosmological phase transitions…
This is an essay sketching the line of thinking which has led the present author to propose the constituent or atomic model of gravitation more than a decade ago. It turns out that viewing the problem of gravitation as a quantum many body…
Super-high energy corpuscular and gamma rays as well as cosmic high--power density sources are hard to explain in a galaxy model framework. Attempts to include some of those phenomena in the Standard Cosmological Model also encounter…
In the standard cosmological theory one uses the Einstein concepts of space and time as were originally introduced for the special theory of relativity and the general relativity theory. According to this approach all physical quantities…
Quantum gravity, as a fundamental theory of space-time, is expected to reveal how the universe may have started, perhaps during or before an inflationary epoch. It may then leave a potentially observable (but probably minuscule) trace in…
Two fundamental laws are needed for prediction in the universe: (1) a basic dynamical law and (2) a law for the cosmological initial condition. Quantum cosmology is the area of basic research concerned with the search for a theory of the…
Alternative scenarios to the Big Bang singularity have been subject of intense research for several decades by now. Most popular in this sense have been frameworks were such singularity is replaced by a bounce around some minimal…
Some remarkable examples of alternative cosmological theories are reviewed here, ranging from a compilation of variations on the Standard Model through the more distant quasi-steady-state cosmology, plasma cosmology, or universe models as a…
A brief review of the modern state of quantum cosmology is presented as a theory of quantum initial conditions for inflationary scenario. The no-boundary and tunneling states of the Universe are discussed as a possible source of probability…
"Ever since the advent of modern quantum mechanics in the late 1920's, the idea has been prevalent that the classical laws of probability cease, in some sense, to be valid in the new theory. [...] The primary object of this presentation is…
Modern scientific cosmology pushes the boundaries of knowledge and the knowable. This is prompting questions on the nature of scientific knowledge. A central issue is what defines a 'good' model. When addressing global properties of the…