Related papers: On a finite universe with no beginning or end
What is the quantum state of the universe? That is the central question of quantum cosmology. This essay describes the place of that quantum state in a final theory governing the regularities exhibited universally by all physical systems in…
The quest to understand better the nature of the initial cosmological singularity is with us since the discovery of the expanding universe. Here, we propose several non-flat models, among them the standard cosmological scenario with a…
Did time begin at a Big Bang? Will the present expansion of the universe last for a finite or infinite time? These questions sound philosophical but are becoming, now in the twenty-first century, central to the scientific study of…
We investigate the cosmological behavior in a universe governed by time asymmetric extensions of general relativity, which is a novel modified gravity based on the addition of new, time-asymmetric, terms on the Hamiltonian framework, in a…
The creation of universes in entangled pairs may avoid the initial singularity and it would have observable consequences in a large macroscopic universe like ours, at least in principle. In this paper we describe the creation of an…
Microphysical laws are time reversible, but macrophysics, chemistry and biology are not. This chapter explores how this asymmetry (a classic example of a broken symmetry) arises due to the cosmological context, where a non-local Direction…
The occurrence of a big smash singularity which ends the universe in a finite time in the future is investigated in the context of superquintessence, i.e. dark energy with effective equation of state parameter w<-1. The simplest model of…
It has long been a primary objective of cosmology to understand the apparent isotropy in our universe and to provide a mathematical formulation for its evolution. A school of thought for its explanation is quiescent cosmology, which already…
Matter collapsing to a singularity in a gravitational field is still an intriguing question. Similar situation arises when discussing the very early universe or a universe recollapsing to a singularity. It is suggested that inclusion of…
We address how to construct an infinitely cyclic universe model. A major consideration is to make the entropy cyclic which requires the entropy to be reset to zero in each cycle expansion to turnaround, to contraction, to bounce, etc. Here…
In this paper I propose a new principle in physics: the principle of "finiteness". It stems from the definition of physics as a science that deals (among other things) with measurable dimensional physical quantities. Since measurement…
Universe structure emerges in the unreduced, complex-dynamic interaction process with the simplest initial configuration (two attracting homogeneous fields, quant-ph/9902015). The unreduced interaction analysis gives intrinsically creative…
Although big bang cosmology effectively models even the most puzzling observational data, it offers no insight into why the cosmological expansion should occur at all. In this paper it is suggested that a finite Universe poses particular…
General relativity allows for inhomogeneous and anisotropic universes with finite action. By contrast, in quadratic gravity such solutions obtain infinite action and are thus eliminated. What remains are homogeneous and isotropic solutions…
The 2nd law of thermodynamics is used to shed light on present-day puzzles in cosmology. The universal law, given as an equation of motion, describes diverse systems when consuming free energy via various mechanisms to attain stationary…
The Block Universe idea, representing spacetime as a fixed whole, suggests the flow of time is an illusion: the entire universe just is, with no special meaning attached to the present time. This view is however based on time-reversible…
We construct a model for the universe based on the existence of quantum fields at finite temperature in the background of Robertson-Walker spacetime in presence of a non-zero cosmological constant. We discuss the vacuum regime in the light…
This article introduces Universal Quantum Relativity which is a simple Theory of Everything. It relies on an ultimate doctrine that is the absence of absolute existence. This generalizes relativity principles up to a mother quantum theory.…
The hypothesis is rapidly gaining popularity that the dark energy pervading our universe is extra-repulsive ($-p>\rho$). The density of such a substance(usually called phantom energy) grows with the cosmological expansion and may become…
We describe how cosmology has converged towards a beautiful model of the Universe: the Big Bang Universe. We praise this model, but show there is a dark side to it. This dark side is usually called ``the cosmological problems'': a set of…