DOCSLIB.ORG

What Caused the Universe?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
What Caused the Universe? WHAT CAUSED THE UNIVERSE? Y-ORIGINS APOLOGETICS MAGAZINE- ARTICLE EXCERPT There are many great apologetic books that you could leave with students if only they would read them. But they probably won’t. They might, however, skim through a magazine. So we compiled the most convincing apologetics for the existence of God and the best evidence for Jesus into two highly graphic magazines and had the designers of Relevant magazine make it look really cool. Y-Origins deals with proofs for the existence of God ranging from arguments from Intelligent Design to the nature of man (mind, aesthetics, morality, etc.). Y-Jesus presents the classic evidence for Christ including “Lord, Liar, Lunatic,” Evidence for the Resurrection, Claims to Deity, New Testament Reliability and Fulfillment of Prophecy. Y-ORIGINS ORDER ONLINE AT CRUPRESS.COM © 2010, CruPress, All Rights Reserved. CruPress.com BACK TO THE BEGINNING © 2010, CruPress, All Rights Reserved. CruPress.com SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES REVIVE THE ANCIENT BELIEF IN A BEGINNING TO THE UNIVERSE IF WE COULD REWIND THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE, WHAT WOULD WE DISCOVER ABOUT ITS ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT? DID IT REALLY HAVE A BEGINNING, OR WAS IT ALWAYS THERE? © 2010, CruPress, All Rights Reserved. CruPress.comBACK TO THE BEGINNING • ARTICLE ONE • 7 The influential ancient philosopher Aristo- they are now quite certain that the moon of his day in that he believed in an eternal tle stated, “It is impossible that movement isn’t made of cheese). It’s looking like the universe. And not being particularly fond of should ever come into being or cease to be, universe had a beginning at a point in time the implications of his own theory, he did for it must always have existed. Nor can after all. what any red-blooded super-genius would time come into being or cease to be.” Remarkably, one of the first scientists do: he fudged the numbers. He altered his to swing the pendulum of opinion back equation in order to nullify the conclusion Meanwhile, the biblical book of Genesis to the birthday-universe position was so that the universe was expanding. famously starts off, “In the beginning God entrenched in eternal-universe thinking created the heaven and the earth.” that at first he refused to believe his own University of California astrophysicist conclusions. George Smoot explains that Einstein’s main Which is it? Is the universe eternal—has it problem with an expanding universe was always been here? Or did it have a start at its implication of a beginning, an ultimate some point in time—did it have a birthday, barrier to scientific investigation.2 However, so to speak? These are the two schools of once experimental data proved that the thought that have enrolled followers since universe really was expanding, Einstein early times. (Actually, there was also a third admitted his error, calling it “the biggest school that postulated that the universe blunder of my life.”3 A existed on the back of a giant sea turtle, but GREAT they’re mostly gone now.) BRAIN’S There’s a point worth considering here: if it BIGGEST could happen to Einstein, it could happen The seesaw of opinion has tipped one way BLUNDER to anyone. Rarely is anyone completely or the other over time. But lately the weight objective when it comes to the issue of of evidence has all been coming down on a Creator. While it is true that religious the side of the birthday universe. belief and philosophy became an obstacle When Albert Einstein developed his revolu- for scientific inquiry in the days of Galileo, tionary theory of general relativity in 1916, In the old days when the Christian church trends have changed. In the modern era it his mathematical calculations pointed to dominated Western society, the creation has at times been a prejudice against the an extraordinary conclusion—the universe of the universe was taken for granted. But possibility of an intelligent Designer for the was expanding. And since if you rewind slowly the scientific viewpoint pushed universe that has kept many scientists from the tape on any expansion, you get back aside creation as well as the Creator. Now honest and open inquiry. to a point where it started, that meant the many scientists are thinking that the idea universe must have had a beginning too.1 of a creation may not have been so far off Thankfully, the truth generally comes out from the truth as they thought (though in the end and skeptics are convinced. Einstein, however, was like most scientists 8 • ARTICLE ONE • BACK TO THE BEGINNING© 2010, CruPress, All Rights Reserved. CruPress.com For Einstein and others, it was something The only explanation for all of this was that The world’s leading astrophysicist, Stephen called red shift that started the parade of space itself was expanding, causing all Hawking, who has held the esteemed posi- evidence for a universe with a beginning. galaxies to move away from each other. In tion of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics an expanding universe, from any point in at Cambridge, calls Hubble’s discovery of RED space (including our own), it would appear an expanding universe “one of the great SHIFTING that most stars and galaxies were racing intellectual revolutions of the twentieth THE away. And the farther away they were, the century.”6 The discovery that the universe BIG faster they would be racing. had a beginning has led to a new sci- BANG ence called cosmology, which attempts to THEORY understand what happened at the origin of INTO HIGH There it was in the red shift: proof that the universe, how it works, and what will GEAR Einstein had been right in the first place happen in its future. (before he fudged his formula) and that the universe really was expanding. Proof, Another line of evidence in the new field in other words, that the universe was not of cosmology comes under a name that In the late 1920s, the American astronomer eternal but had a beginning.4 doesn’t help at all in explaining how impor- Edwin Hubble noticed something unusual tant and comprehensive it really is. as he gazed into the heavens. It wasn’t a And yet not everyone accepted the proof at new planet or little green men waving at first, including a scientist named Sir Fred him from Mars; it was something both more Hoyle (former Plumian professor of astrono- tedious and at the same time more thrilling. my at Cambridge University and founder of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge). A Hubble had been spending countless SECOND Ironically, it was Hoyle who originally de- nights at the Mount Wilson Observatory, LAW scribed the event as a “big bang,” meaning studying the stars and galaxies and espe- OF to mock the idea. The name stuck. (Ac- cially the spectrum of color in the light they FIRST cording to physics professor Brian Greene, sent our way. He discovered that the light IMPORTANCE the term “big bang” is actually misleading from most other galaxies was shifted to the since there was nothing to explode and red end of the spectrum, which indicated no space in which an explosion could take they were moving away from us. Further- In addition to Hubble’s discovery, the sec- place.)5 But unlike Hoyle, many other sci- more, the farther a galaxy was away from ond law of thermodynamics also predicts entists began coming over to the side of the us, the more red shifted its light was and a beginning to the universe. You say you newly named theory. the faster it was moving away from us. don’t know what the second law of thermo- dynamics is? I beg to differ. © 2010, CruPress, All Rights Reserved. CruPress.comBACK TO THE BEGINNING • ARTICLE ONE • 9 holes would have ceased vacuuming the prehension. This heat would have gradually Let’s say you come into a room containing universe of unsightly stars and planets. dissipated over the life of the cosmos, leav- me and a bunch of your other pals, and you ing only a tiny residual of about 3 degrees find a steaming cup of Starbucks coffee on When you see flaming suns and scorching Kelvin (–270 degrees C). the table. Being the thoughtful individual meteors, in other words, you’re looking at Additionally, in order for galaxies to have that you are, you ask, “Does this belong to a steaming cup of coffee that over infinite formed, the pattern formed by the explosion anyone?” time would have long since gone room needed to have slight variations in the form temperature. Since the universe is still full of waves or ripples. To which I reply, “It’s been there for the last of pockets of heat and energy, it cannot be According to George Smoot, these ripples month.” eternal. would result in very slight fluctuations in the predicted temperature and would Well, you’d know immediately I was wrong Who would have thought heat would be reveal an identifiable pattern.8 Thus, if the or lying (probably lying). Why? Because such a helpful clue? But wait! There is still temperatures matched up, the birth of the the coffee wouldn’t still be hot if it had another way that heat effects help to prove universe would be scientifically verified. been there for a month; it would be room that the universe is expanding. Merely discovering the temperature to be temperature. 3 degrees Kelvin would not prove that the universe actually had a beginning; the fluctuations also needed to match.9 That’s the second law of thermodynamics THE in action.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Jul/Aug 2013
    I NTERNATIONAL J OURNAL OF H IGH -E NERGY P HYSICS CERNCOURIER WELCOME V OLUME 5 3 N UMBER 6 J ULY /A UGUST 2 0 1 3 CERN Courier – digital edition Welcome to the digital edition of the July/August 2013 issue of CERN Courier. This “double issue” provides plenty to read during what is for many people the holiday season. The feature articles illustrate well the breadth of modern IceCube brings particle physics – from the Standard Model, which is still being tested in the analysis of data from Fermilab’s Tevatron, to the tantalizing hints of news from the deep extraterrestrial neutrinos from the IceCube Observatory at the South Pole. A connection of a different kind between space and particle physics emerges in the interview with the astronaut who started his postgraduate life at CERN, while connections between particle physics and everyday life come into focus in the application of particle detectors to the diagnosis of breast cancer. And if this is not enough, take a look at Summer Bookshelf, with its selection of suggestions for more relaxed reading. To sign up to the new issue alert, please visit: http://cerncourier.com/cws/sign-up. To subscribe to the magazine, the e-mail new-issue alert, please visit: http://cerncourier.com/cws/how-to-subscribe. ISOLDE OUTREACH TEVATRON From new magic LHC tourist trail to the rarest of gets off to a LEGACY EDITOR: CHRISTINE SUTTON, CERN elements great start Results continue DIGITAL EDITION CREATED BY JESSE KARJALAINEN/IOP PUBLISHING, UK p6 p43 to excite p17 CERNCOURIER www.
    [Show full text]
  • Luis Alvarez: the Ideas Man
    CERN Courier March 2012 Commemoration Luis Alvarez: the ideas man The years from the early 1950s to the late 1980s came alive again during a symposium to commemorate the birth of one of the great scientists and inventors of the 20th century. Luis Alvarez – one of the greatest experimental physicists of the 20th century – combined the interests of a scientist, an inventor, a detective and an explorer. He left his mark on areas that ranged from radar through to cosmic rays, nuclear physics, particle accel- erators, detectors and large-scale data analysis, as well as particles and astrophysics. On 19 November, some 200 people gathered at Berkeley to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth. Alumni of the Alvarez group – among them physicists, engineers, programmers and bubble-chamber film scanners – were joined by his collaborators, family, present-day students and admirers, as well as scientists whose professional lineage traces back to him. Hosted by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the University of California at Berkeley, the symposium reviewed his long career and lasting legacy. A recurring theme of the symposium was, as one speaker put it, a “Shakespeare-type dilemma”: how could one person have accom- plished all of that in one lifetime? Beyond his own initiatives, Alvarez created a culture around him that inspired others to, as George Smoot put it, “think big,” as well as to “think broadly and then deep” and to take risks. Combined with Alvarez’s strong scientific standards and great care in execut- ing them, these principles led directly to the awarding of two Nobel Luis Alvarez celebrating the announcement of his 1968 Nobel prizes in physics to scientists at Berkeley – George Smoot in 2006 prize.
    [Show full text]
  • The Cosmic Microwave Background: the History of Its Experimental Investigation and Its Significance for Cosmology
    REVIEW ARTICLE The Cosmic Microwave Background: The history of its experimental investigation and its significance for cosmology Ruth Durrer Universit´ede Gen`eve, D´epartement de Physique Th´eorique,1211 Gen`eve, Switzerland E-mail: [email protected] Abstract. This review describes the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation in 1965 and its impact on cosmology in the 50 years that followed. This discovery has established the Big Bang model of the Universe and the analysis of its fluctuations has confirmed the idea of inflation and led to the present era of precision cosmology. I discuss the evolution of cosmological perturbations and their imprint on the CMB as temperature fluctuations and polarization. I also show how a phase of inflationary expansion generates fluctuations in the spacetime curvature and primordial gravitational waves. In addition I present findings of CMB experiments, from the earliest to the most recent ones. The accuracy of these experiments has helped us to estimate the parameters of the cosmological model with unprecedented precision so that in the future we shall be able to test not only cosmological models but General Relativity itself on cosmological scales. Submitted to: Class. Quantum Grav. arXiv:1506.01907v1 [astro-ph.CO] 5 Jun 2015 The Cosmic Microwave Background 2 1. Historical Introduction The discovery of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) by Penzias and Wilson, reported in Refs. [1, 2], has been a 'game changer' in cosmology. Before this discovery, despite the observation of the expansion of the Universe, see [3], the steady state model of cosmology still had a respectable group of followers.
    [Show full text]
  • Reversed out (White) Reversed
    Berkeley rev.( white) Berkeley rev.( FALL 2014 reversed out (white) reversed IN THIS ISSUE Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory Tabletop Physics Bringing More Women into Physics ALUMNI NEWS AND MORE! Cover: The MAVEN satellite mission uses instrumentation developed at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory to explore the physics behind the loss of the Martian atmosphere. It’s a continuation of Berkeley astrophysicist Robert Lin’s pioneering work in solar physics. See p 7. photo credit: Lockheed Martin Physics at Berkeley 2014 Published annually by the Department of Physics Steven Boggs: Chair Anil More: Director of Administration Maria Hjelm: Director of Development, College of Letters and Science Devi Mathieu: Editor, Principal Writer Meg Coughlin: Design Additional assistance provided by Sarah Wittmer, Sylvie Mehner and Susan Houghton Department of Physics 366 LeConte Hall #7300 University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720-7300 Copyright 2014 by The Regents of the University of California FEATURES 4 12 18 Berkeley’s Space Tabletop Physics Bringing More Women Sciences Laboratory BERKELEY THEORISTS INVENT into Physics NEW WAYS TO SEARCH FOR GOING ON SIX DECADES UC BERKELEY HOSTS THE 2014 NEW PHYSICS OF EDUCATION AND SPACE WEST COAST CONFERENCE EXPLORATION Berkeley theoretical physicists Ashvin FOR UNDERGRADUATE WOMEN Vishwanath and Surjeet Rajendran IN PHYSICS Since the Space Lab’s inception are developing new, small-scale in 1959, Berkeley physicists have Women physics students from low-energy approaches to questions played important roles in many California, Oregon, Washington, usually associated with large-scale of the nation’s space-based scientific Alaska, and Hawaii gathered on high-energy particle experiments.
    [Show full text]
  • Mysteries of the Universe
    Mysteries of the Universe Harry Ringermacher, Ph.D. General Electric Research Center Schenectady, NY Elliott-Nowell-White Science Symposium Oct. 11, 2012 Overview • Astronomy 101 - Scales of distance, light measure • The “Big-Bang Universe” – how we see • What do we know about Dark Matter and Dark Energy ? • The search for Dark Matter “Astronomy 101” Andromeda galaxy photo by H. Ringermacher Milky Way scaled against our nearest neighbor galaxy, Andromeda 100,000 Ly 1 light year = distance light travels in 1 year 6,000,000,000,000 miles Time-line of the Universe Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe – WMAP (2001) Cosmic Background Explorer COBE – forerunner (1989) WMAP produced unprecedented images of the earliest light in the universe – the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) What did WMAP discover? • Universe is 13.7 billion years old , (± 1%) • First stars ignited 200 million years after the Big Bang . • Light in the WMAP picture is from 379,000 years after the Big Bang . • Content of the Universe: 4% Atoms, 23% Cold Dark Matter, 73% Dark Energy . • The Universe will expand forever (it is “flat”) and is accelerating . • The nature of the Dark Energy and Dark Matter is still a mystery . 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics Blackbody from and anisotropy of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation John Mather George Smoot NASA Goddard UC Berkeley The Accelerating Universe • How do we measure the speed of expansion? • Astronomers use “Standard Candles” • Astronomers use the brightest “candle” SUPERNOVA 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics Discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae Brian Schmidt, Australian Nat’l U.
    [Show full text]
  • NSF Sensational 60
    Cover credits Background: © 2010 JupiterImages Corporation Inset credits (left to right): Courtesy Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Gemini Observatory; Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation; Zee Evans, National Science Foundation; Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation; Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation, adapted from map by Chris Harrison, Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellon University; Tobias Hertel, Insti- tute for Physical Chemistry, University of Würzburg Design by: Adrian Apodaca, National Science Foundation 1 Introduction The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. Congress passed legislation creating the NSF in 1950 and President Harry S. Truman signed that legislation on May 10, 1950, creating a government agency that funds research in the basic sciences, engineering, mathematics and technology. NSF is the federal agency responsible for nonmedical research in all fields of science, engineering, education and technology. NSF funding is approved through the federal budget process. In fiscal year (FY) 2010, its budget is about $6.9 billion. NSF has an independent governing body called the National Science Board (NSB) that oversees and helps direct NSF programs and activities. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 universities and institutions. NSF is the funding source for approximately 20 percent of all federally supported basic research conducted by America’s colleges and universities. Each year, NSF receives over 45,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes over 11,500 new funding awards. NSF also awards over $400 million in professional and service contracts yearly. NSF has a total workforce of about 1,700 at its Arlington, Va., headquarters, including approximately 1,200 career employees, 150 scientists from research institutions on temporary duty, 200 contract workers and the staff of the NSB office and the Office of the Inspector General.
    [Show full text]
  • Big and Small
    Big and Small R D Ekers1 CSIRO-ATNF Sydney, NSW, Australia E-mail: [email protected] Abstract Technology leads discovery in astronomy, as in all other areas of science, so growth in technology leads to the continual stream of new discoveries which makes our field so fascinating. Derek de Solla Price had analysed the discovery process in science in the 1960s and he introduced the terms 'Little Science' and 'Big Science' as part of his discussion of the role of exponential growth in science. I will show how the development of astronomical facilities has followed this same trend from 'Little Science' to 'Big Science' as a field matures. We can see this in the discoveries resulting in Nobel Prizes in astronomy. A more detailed analysis of discoveries in radio astronomy shows the same effect. I include a digression to look at how science progresses, comparing the roles of prediction, serendipity, measurement and explanation. Finally I comment on the differences between the 'Big Science' culture in Physics and in Astronomy. Accelerating the Rate of Astronomical Discovery - sps5 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil August 11–14 2009 1 Speaker © Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Licence. http://pos.sissa.it Big and Small Ekers 1. Exponential Growth in Science Harwit [1] showed that most important discoveries in astronomy result from technical innovation. The discoveries peak soon after new technology appears, and usually within 5 years of the technical capability. Instruments used for discoveries are often built by the observer. He also noted that new astronomical phenomena are more frequently found by researchers trained outside astronomy.
    [Show full text]
  • Contributions of Civilizations to International Prizes
    CONTRIBUTIONS OF CIVILIZATIONS TO INTERNATIONAL PRIZES Split of Nobel prizes and Fields medals by civilization : PHYSICS .......................................................................................................................................................................... 1 CHEMISTRY .................................................................................................................................................................... 2 PHYSIOLOGY / MEDECINE .............................................................................................................................................. 3 LITERATURE ................................................................................................................................................................... 4 ECONOMY ...................................................................................................................................................................... 5 MATHEMATICS (Fields) .................................................................................................................................................. 5 PHYSICS Occidental / Judeo-christian (198) Alekseï Abrikossov / Zhores Alferov / Hannes Alfvén / Eric Allin Cornell / Luis Walter Alvarez / Carl David Anderson / Philip Warren Anderson / EdWard Victor Appleton / ArthUr Ashkin / John Bardeen / Barry C. Barish / Nikolay Basov / Henri BecqUerel / Johannes Georg Bednorz / Hans Bethe / Gerd Binnig / Patrick Blackett / Felix Bloch / Nicolaas Bloembergen
    [Show full text]
  • The Nobel Prize in Physics 2006
    I NFORMAT I ON FOR THE PUBL I C The Nobel Prize in Physics 2006 The Nobel Prize in Physics for 2006 is awarded to John C. Mather and George F. Smoot for their discovery of the basic form of the cosmic microwave background radiation as well as its small varia- tions in different directions. The very detailed observations that the Laureates have carried out from the COBE satellite have played a major role in the development of modern cosmology into a precise science. From unexpected noise to precision science The cosmic microwave background radiation was registered for the first time in 1964. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson (who were awarded the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for this disco- very) first mistook the radiation for irrelevant noise in their radio receivers (in fact, the cosmic microwave background is part of that “blizzard”-like noise we all receive on our television sets whenever normal transmission is interrupted). However, a theory predicting microwave background had already been developed in the 1940s (by Alpher, Gamow and Herman) and the discovery therefore made an important contribution to the ongoing discussion about the origins of the Universe. Two competing cosmological theories in particular were on the agenda at this time: either the Universe had been created in an initial Big Bang and then continued to expand, or it had always existed in a Steady State. The Big Bang-scenario actually predicts the existence of microwave background radiation, so the discovery by Penzias and Wilson naturally gave additional credibility to that theory. The blackbody origin of the Universe According to the Big Bang-scenario, our Universe developed from a state of intense heat.
    [Show full text]
  • NERSC AR 06 Released:Layout 1
    NATIONAL ENERGY RESEARCH SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING CENTER ANNUAL REPORT 2006 NATIONAL ENERGY RESEARCH SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING CENTER ANNUAL REPORT 2006 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 94720-8148 This work was supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. LBNL-63342, August 2007 Table of Contents THE YEAR IN PERSPECTIVE . 1 RESEARCH NEWS . 3 A warmer, stormier world : : By the end of this century, bigger hurricanes, longer heat waves, and more extreme weather will be evident . 4 Going to the extremes. 6 Breeding bigger hurricanes. 7 Improving hurricane defenses . 8 Under the computational microscope : : Materials scientists and chemists are using computational tools to understand, improve, and create new kinds of materials . 10 Graphene nanoribbons: A new path to spintronics. 12 Practical plasmonic crystal biosensors . 13 Overcoming nanocrystals’ resistance to doping. 15 Why doping strengthens grain boundaries . 16 A random walk along an interface. 18 Building a chemical tool box . 20 Solving plasma puzzles : : Numerical simulations are revealing the origins of strange phenomena that occur in the most complex state of matter . 22 Understanding magnetic explosions . 24 Modeling microturbulence in fusion plasmas . 26 Surfing the plasma waves : : Simulations are helping physicists understand how to optimize the beams in laser wakefield particle accelerators . 28 The birth and death of stars : : For understanding the history of the Universe, supercomputers are now as necessary as telescopes. 32 High-mass star formation . 34 A star is born . 35 From soundwaves to supernovae . 36 Calibrating cosmology .
    [Show full text]
  • The Universe During Epochs of Accelerating Expansion
    The Universe During Epochs of Accelerating Expansion Charlotte Owen Department of Physics Lancaster University June 2019 A thesis submitted to Lancaster University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Science and Technology Supervised by Dr. Konstantinos Dimopoulos Abstract Cosmic inflation, the accelerated expansion of the early Universe, is an accepted pillar in the foundations of modern cosmology. This is due mainly to its success at explaining several anomalies between observations and the existing Hot Big Bang model of the Universe, but a specific model is not agreed upon in the literature. The Universe has also recently been observed to enter another phase of accelerating expansion, driven by an unexplained mechanism called `dark energy'. The research presented in this thesis grows organically; starting with an investigation into novel inflationary models and developing into quintessential inflation models. The latter explain both the primordial inflation and dark energy observations using one minimal framework. A new family of inflation models is presented, which excellently match observations for natural parameter values, and a derivation from su- pergravity is demonstrated. A period of thermal inflation allows the supergravity realisation of hybrid inflation to be realigned with ob- servations. A new approach to inflection-point inflation is developed, which is considerably less fine-tuned and exotic than previous models. Two novel quintessential inflation models are introduced, the first embedded in α-attractors - a compelling framework of inflationary model building and the second in Gauss-Bonnet gravity - an extension to General Relativity. Detailed investigations of reheating after inflation are undertaken, fo- cusing on gravitational reheating and instant preheating, analysing the necessary constraints including those from supergravity.
    [Show full text]
  • Quasi-Steady-State and Related Cosmological Models
    1 Quasi-Steady-State and Related Cosmological Models: A Historical Review* Helge Kragh Centre for Science Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark Abstract. Since the emergence in the late 1960s of the standard hot big-bang theory, cosmology has been dominated by finite-age models. However, the rival view that the universe has existed for an indefinite time has continued to be defended by a minority of researchers. This view has roots far back in history and in the 1950s and 1960s several models were proposed in opposition to the big-bang paradigm. The most important of the alternative models, the steady-state cosmology proposed in 1948, was uniformly expanding rather than exhibiting a cyclical behaviour. In a much revised version it was developed into the quasi- steady-state cosmological model (QSSC) of the 1990s. From a historical point of view, this model, and a few other related models, can be seen as the latest examples of a tradition in cosmological thought that goes back to ancient Greece. The paper describes the background and development of the QSSC model. 1. Early conceptions of a cyclical-eternal world The notion of an eternal universe, either in the steady-state version or some cyclical version, is as old as the idea of a created universe. Many of the ancient cosmo- mythologies imagined a future cosmic catastrophe represented by a huge battle between the good and evil forces of nature. The catastrophe did not necessarily imply * Slightly revised version of contribution to Rüdiger Vaas, ed., Beyond the Big Bang: Prospects for an Eternal Universe, a book to be published by Springer, but which has now been delayed for several years.
    [Show full text]