...Modern Cosmology Cosmology, or modern astronomy, has deep roots in the Big Bang theory, which seeks to explain the beginning of the universe, the structure of the objects within it, and the laws that govern it. The Big Bang and string theory are two highly respected theories in science for the universe. In the history of astronomy, very little discoveries have been more important than the introduction of the new heliocentric cosmology. It was common belief up until the 1500s that the Earth was the center of the universe-- with everything else orbiting around it. With the 1500s, however; a new idea came to light. Nicholas Copernicus suggested in his book “On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres,” that the Sun was the center of the solar system. Later, into the early 1600s, Johannes Kepler was an advocate Copernicus’ heliocentric universe. Kepler is responsible for discovering that planets revolve around the Sun in elliptical orbits—which is the first of his three laws of planetary motion. His second law, according to "Johannes Kepler: The Laws of Planetary Motion" (n.d.), is “the line joining the planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal times as the planet travels around the ellipse,” (para. 14). "Johannes Kepler: The Laws of Planetary Motion" (n.d.), also states that the third of Kepler’s laws is “the ratio of the squares of the revolutionary periods for two planets is equal to the ratio of the cubes of their semi-major axes,” (para. 15). Kepler also proposed that...
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...Cosmology As we have learned, Edwin Hubble showed that the farther away a galaxy is, the faster away from the Milky Way it is moving. This gives the appearance that the Milky Way is at the center of the universe, and all galaxies are moving away from us, possibly due to some large explosion, The Big Bang. The Hubble's Law can be applied to any observer in any galaxy. No matter where you are, an expanding universe will give the same appearance. The expansion of the universe is not like the explosion of a bomb sending fragments in all directions. Space itself is expanding. We can detect photons that appear to have moved at different speeds through space. However, as the speed of light is constant, it is space that is moving relative to the photon. The galaxies are fixed relative to space, but space itself is moving. We have seen no 'edge' to the universe and there are an equal number of galaxies in every direction. Also, galaxies can move relative to space, but at times gravity can accelerate one galaxy toward another faster than space expands. When light waves travel through space, they are stretched by expansion and this increases the wave's wavelength, making it appear redder. Using the Hubble Law, we can estimate the age of the universe. At some point in the distant past, matter in the universe must have been densely packed. From this point, the universe would have expanded at some high speed to become today's universe. Assuming a constant expansion over time, we find...
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...Cosmology: the study of the origin of the universe— a most fascinating topic that I have always considered a novelty. Verily, the universe is a testament to God’s genius and beauty, his eternal power and divine qualities. As Psalms 19 states, “ The heaven declares the glory of God.” If anything, cosmology and science and the intricate sensibilities of physics and chemistry and biology are showcases of God’s love and mercy towards us— that is what Christianity is about, God so loving the world that he sent his one and only son, Jesus Christ, to save us wretched beings. Not the big bang, not the earth’s age, not the speed of light. After this unit, I still think cosmology is more of a novelty compared to, or at least a miniscule part of, God’s plan for our salvation. Christianity is an issue of the heart, and...
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...People have had an innate curiosity about the world since the beginning of time. Many observations and discoveries have been made over the last several thousand years. Such observations include that the Sun slowly travels east during the year relative to the zodiac constellations, the stars do not appear to shift their positions, and the planets exhibit retrograde motion. The Mesopotamians developed the idea that the Earth and the heavens were a spatial whole, making references to the circumference of heaven and Earth and the totality of heaven and Earth. Babylonian cosmology suggested that the cosmos revolved in a circular motion with the heavens and the earth being equal and joined as a whole. This led Plato to develop a model placing Earth as a...
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...Maybe In Another Universe, I Deserve You Gaby Dunn What if, in another universe, I deserve you? Hear me out. There’s this philosopher from the 1890s named William James, and he coined this theory about “the multiverse” which suggests that a hypothetical set of multiple universes comprises everything that can possibly exist simultaneously. Are you following? The entirety of space, time, matter and energy is all happening at once in different timelines: It’s the idea of parallel universes. Right? So okay, let’s presume the multiverse is real. Well then, maybe somewhere in those infinite universes is one, or several, where I deserve you. Maybe there’s a universe out there — happening now — where we end up together and when I close my eyes at night, I’m not dreaming the way a normal person would. Instead I’m seeing flashes of our lives in the multiverse. They’re not simple dreams because I miss you, right? They’re scientific, anachronistic visions. For instance: In this universe, I don’t want a family, but maybe in another, I’m more of the type to settle down. Maybe there’s a universe where you hold my hand while I give birth to our daughter in a white hospital room with pink flowers and fuzzy teddy bears on the window sill. Where we take family vacations and pose for dorky pictures in our neon bathing suits on the sands of a Florida beach. Where we curl up to watch a cheesy movie at the end of a long day in our big, green, suburban house once the kids have fallen asleep...
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...University of Phoenix Material Types of Myth Worksheet Knowledge, Belief, Myth, and Religion Directions: Answer the following question on knowledge, belief, myth, and religion in 3 to 5 sentences. How are knowledge, belief, myth, and religion related to one another and how are they distinct from one another? Use an example from your life or popular culture to explain this relationship. | | | | | | Myths Directions: Choose two examples for each type of myth and identify the pieces of literature, such as a Shakespeare play, in which the examples are found. Answer the following questions: Greek Myths |Myth 1: |Literature it’s found in: | |Myth 2: |Literature it’s found in: | Describe Greek myths: | ...
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...University of Phoenix Material Types of Myths Worksheet Knowledge, Belief, Myth, and Religion Directions: Answer the following question on knowledge, belief, myth, and religion in 3 to 5 sentences. How are knowledge, belief, myth, and religion related to one another and how are they distinct from one another? Use an example from your life or popular culture to explain this relationship. | | | | | | Myths Directions: Choose two examples for each type of myth and identify the pieces of literature, such as a Shakespeare play, in which the examples are found. Greek Myths |Myth 1: |Literature it’s found in: | |Myth 2: |Literature it’s found in: | Answer the following questions: Describe Greek myths. | ...
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...Anna Iwaniw The Pentateuch Jacob Rodgers 17 September, 2015 Short Paper #1 When it comes to the biblical story of creation, it can be wondered how it was written and told in such detail when there was no people to observe it. There are quite a few possible answers to this question including it being a story passed down through generations, or perhaps God revealed the story to the writer in some way (Schittjer, 2006). One of the theories of how the creation story could have been written is from adaptations of other cosmologies. In this paper, I will look into some of these cosmologies and compare and contrast the similarities and differences between them and the biblical narrative of the creation story. One of the most contrasting cosmology to the bible is the Egyptians. As we know, the Egyptians were the ones to enslave Israel under their power and rule. The Egyptians also are known to have polytheistic views and believe and worship many different gods. This is very contrasting to the monotheistic biblical viewpoint of one God. Though they are two very different viewpoints, a few similarities can be found in their ideas of the creation story. For example, in the Egyptian views each creation aspect is and made by a different deity of their religion. The sky is Nut, the atmosphere is Shu, the earth is Geb, and the sun god is Re (Schnittjer, 2006). Each of these gods work with one another to create a different aspect of the creation such as day and night and the earth and...
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...Jimmy Kim Professor Stayton English 201 21 April 2015 Western and Eastern Cosmologies According to Drew Dellinger, the word cosmology has two definitions. The first definition of cosmology is: “the branch of philosophy dealing with the origin and general structure of the universe, with its parts, elements, and laws, and especially with such of its characteristics as space, time, causality, and freedom (Drew).” The second definition of cosmology is: “the branch of astronomy that deals with the general structure and evolution of the universe (Drew).” Therefore, cosmology is the study of the origin of the universe, and it can be interpreted through a philosophical or scientific perspective. But for this essay, I will interpret cosmology in a philosophical, literary perspective to study “cultural perspective which the universe is shaped, ordered, operated, and men's role in it.” The goal in this essay is to illustrate philosophical, literary similarities and differences between Eastern and Western cosmologies by using King James' The Fall and David Cusick's The Iroquois Creation Story. The Eastern and Western cosmologies are defined by philosophical and literary perspectives, not based on geography, culture, and language. The Eastern cosmology is based on collectivism and Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang is Chinese philosophy which describes “opposite or contrary forces and actually complementary, interconnected, and inter-depended in the natural world (Palmer, 25).” This means that...
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..."What if the Sun / Be Centre to the World": Cosmology in Paradise Lost Nothing less than the creation and ordering of the universe defines the scope of Paradise Lost. The epic explores its cosmological theme in theoretical discussions between Adam and Raphael and in the narrator's descriptions and metaphors. Further, Milton imagines Satan surveying the universe in an expedition of discovery through a new world in his fall from Heaven and his passage through Chaos to Earth. Adam tries to understand the earth's physical place in the universe and its associated ontological and theological value as the home of man. He wonders aloud about "this Earth a spot, a grain,/ An Atom, with the Firmament compar'd/ And all her numbered Starrs, that seem to rowl /Spaces incomprehensible" (PL 8.17-21). Milton asks us to imagine the first man struggling with many of the same questions a Renaissance thinker, contemplating new models of the universe, must have considered. In response to the theory that everything revolves around the sun and not the earth, philosophers were forced to question the importance of man's role in the universal order. Raphael, responding to Adam's concerns, suggests there is no reason "bodies bright and greater should not serve / The less not bright, nor Heav'n such journies run / Earth sitting still" (PL 8.87-9). Yet, the poem does not answer all such questions directly, and scholars often find it difficult to determine Milton's attitude toward science. In these debates...
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...he multiverse (or meta-universe, metaverse) is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including the historical universe we consistently experience) that together comprise everything that exists and can exist: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws and constants that describe them. The term was coined in 1895 by the American philosopher and psychologist William James.[1] The various universes within the multiverse are sometimes called parallel universes. The structure of the multiverse, the nature of each universe within it and the relationship between the various constituent universes, depend on the specific multiverse hypothesis considered. Multiverses have been hypothesized in cosmology, physics, astronomy, religion, philosophy, transpersonal psychology and fiction, particularly in science fiction and fantasy. In these contexts, parallel universes are also called "alternative universes", "quantum universes", "interpenetrating dimensions", "parallel dimensions", "parallel worlds", "alternative realities", "alternative timelines", and "dimensional planes," among others. Tegmark's classification Cosmologist Max Tegmark has provided a taxonomy of universes beyond the familiar observable universe. The levels according to Tegmark's classification are arranged such that subsequent levels can be understood to encompass and expand upon previous levels, and they are briefly described below. Level I: Beyond our cosmological...
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...------------------------------------------------- What is a Cosmological Constant? Einstein first proposed the cosmological constant (not to be confused with the Hubble Constant) usually symbolized by the greek letter "lambda" (), as a mathematical fix to the theory of general relativity. In its simplest form, general relativity predicted that the universe must either expand or contract. Einstein thought the universe was static, so he added this new term to stop the expansion. Friedmann, a Russian mathematician, realized that this was an unstable fix, like balancing a pencil on its point, and proposed an expanding universe model, now called the Big Bang theory. When Hubble's study of nearby galaxies showed that the universe was in fact expanding, Einstein regretted modifying his elegant theory and viewed the cosmological constant term as his "greatest mistake". Many cosmologists advocate reviving the cosmological constant term on theoretical grounds. Modern field theory associates this term with the energy density of the vacuum. For this energy density to be comparable to other forms of matter in the universe, it would require new physics: the addition of a cosmological constant term has profound implications for particle physics and our understanding of the fundamental forces of nature. The main attraction of the cosmological constant term is that it significantly improves the agreement between theory and observation. The most spectacular example of this is the recent effort...
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...This chronology of the universe describes the history and future of the universe according to Big Bang cosmology, the prevailing scientific model of how the universe came into being and developed over time, using the cosmological time parameter of comoving coordinates. The instant in which the universe is thought to have begun rapidly expanding from a singularity is known as the Big Bang. As of 2013, this expansion is estimated to have begun 13.798 ± 0.037 billion years ago.[1] It is convenient to divide the evolution of the universe so far into three phases. The very earliest universe was so hot, or energetic, that initially no particles existed or could exist (except perhaps in the most fleeting sense), and the forces we see around us today were believed to be merged into one unified force. Space itself expanded during an inflationary epoch due to the immensity of the energies involved. Gradually the immense energies cooled - still to a temperature inconceivably hot compared to any we see around us now, but sufficiently to allow forces to gradually undergo symmetry breaking, a kind of repeated condensation from one status quo to another, leading finally to the separation of the strong force from the electroweak force and the first particles. In the second phase, this quark-gluon plasma universe then cooled further, the current fundamental forces we know take their present forms through further symmetry breaking - notably the breaking of electroweak symmetry - and the full...
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...the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy."—Steven Weinberg Steven Weinberg is winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979, and author of the book "The First Three Minutes". 2 Introduction Science at the beginning of the twenty-first century can make some bold, yet simple observations: 1) the universe has evolved; 2) we are a result of that evolution. “We are the first generation of human beings to glimpse the sweep of cosmic history, from the universe's fiery origin in the Big Bang to the silent, stately flight of galaxies through the intergalactic night.” (National Research Council) Order in the Universe Cosmology is the study of the evolution of the universe from its first moments to the present. In cosmology the most fundamental question we can ask is: Does our universe have intelligible regularities that we can understand—is it ordered? This question lies at the heart of the scientific revolution beginning in the sixteenth century. That revolution began with the discoveries by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton of order in our world. Today our scientific understanding of nature’s order has reached a critical threshold. Only now can we begin to piece together a coherent picture of the whole. Only...
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...it is important to understand what Big Bang Theory (BBT) is and is not. Contrary to the common perception, it is not a theory about the origin of the universe. Rather, it describes the development of the universe over time. This process is often called "cosmic evolution". Over the last several decades the basic picture of cosmology given by BBT has been generally accepted by astronomers, physicists and the wider scientific community. However, no similar consensus has been reached on ideas about the ultimate origin of the universe. This remains an area of active research and some of idea current ideas are discussed below. That said, BBT is nevertheless about origins In addition to being a theory about the origins of the basic building blocks for the world we see today, Given the nature of the subject matter, it is also frequently discussed with heavy religious overtones. Young Earth Creationists dismiss it as an "atheistic theory", dreamt up by scientists looking to deny the divine creation account from Genesis. Conversely, Old Earth Creationists (as well as other Christians) have latched onto BBT as proof of Genesis, claiming that the theory demonstrates that the universe had an origin and did not exist at some point in the distant past. Finally, some atheists have argued that BBT rules out a creator for the universe. What is the Big Bang theory? a) Common misconceptions about the Big Bang In most popularized science sources, it is often described with something like...
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