Related papers: Anthropic Reasoning in Cosmology: A Historical Per…
Quantum cosmology offers a unique stage to address questions of time related to its underlying (and perhaps truly quantum dynamical) meaning as well as its origin. Some of these issues can be analyzed with a general scheme of quantum…
Anthropic reasoning is a critical tool to understand probabilities, especially in a large universe or multiverse. According to anthropic reasoning, we should consider ourselves typical among members of a reference class that must include…
Time has always played a crucial role in cosmology. I review some of the aspects of the present cosmological model which are more directly related to time, such as: the definition of a cosmic time; the existence of typical timescales and…
Are some cosmologists trying to return human beings to the centre of the cosmos? In the view of some critics, the so-called "anthropic principle" is a desperate attempt to salvage a scrap of dignity for our species after a few centuries of…
The current status of the theoretical and observational cosmology is reviewed.
I discuss how modern cosmology illustrates under-determination of theoretical hypotheses by data, in ways that are different from most philosophical discussions. I emphasize cosmology's concern with what data could in principle be collected…
What can relics of the past tell us about the thoughts and beliefs of the people who invented and used them? Recent collaborations at the frontier of archaeology, anthropology, and cognitive science are culminating in speculative but…
A general sketch of how the problem of space dimensionality depends on Anthropic arguments is presented. A new argument in favor of a stable scenario for space dimensionality for a time scale longer than that required for the existence of…
Cosmology has come a long way from being based on a small number of observations to being a data-driven precision science. We discuss the questions "What is observable?", "What in the Universe is knowable?" and "What are the fundamental…
It is often stated that cosmology is an extreme form of archeology that deals with aeons of time extending back to thousands of millions of years. One talks, for instance, of relics of the early Universe, and phases in the history of the…
A brief review of the present-day development of cosmology is presented for mixed physical audience. The universe history is briefly described. Unsolved problems are discussed, in particular, the mystery of the cosmological constant and…
The current cosmological paradigm, $\Lambda$CDM, is characterized its expansive description of the history of the Universe, its deep connections to particle physics and the large amounts of data that support it. Nonetheless, $\Lambda$CDM's…
I review the major concordances and controversies of the meeting concerning observations. Cosmologists are nearing agreement on the global cosmological parameters of the Universe. A few parameters still have large error bars, notably…
While purely philosophical in the early times, and still very speculative at the beginning of the twentieth century, Cosmology has gradually entered into the realm of experimental science over the past eighty years. It has raised some…
We overview our recent studies of cosmological models with expansion and global rotation. Problems of the early rotating models are discussed, and the class of new viable cosmologies is described in detail. Particular attention is paid to…
Multiverse scenarios are common place in contemporary high energy physics and cosmology, although many consider them simply as bold speculations. In any case there is nothing like a single theory or a unified model of the multiverse.…
The (re)introduction of $\Lambda$ into cosmology has spurred debates that touch on central questions in philosophy of science, as well as the foundations of general relativity and particle physics. We provide a systematic assessment of the…
For most of its history, cosmology was a qualitatively constrained discourse on the universe, shaped by limited observational access and the absence of global dynamical laws. This situation has changed decisively in recent decades. Modern…
We re-examine claims that anthropic arguments provide an explanation for the observed smallness of the cosmological constant, and argue that correlations between the cosmological constant value and the existence of life can be demonstrated…
After a survey of the present state of cosmological theory and observations, this article discusses a series of major themes underlying the relation of philosophy to cosmology. These are: A: The uniqueness of the universe; B: The large…