Astronomy and Astrophysics

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sibylle Anderl
Keyword(s):  
Direct Interaction ◽  
Complex Treatment ◽  
Ian Hacking ◽  
Causal Relations ◽  
Causal History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Astronomy And Astrophysics ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Astrophysical Research ◽  
Use Of Models

This article looks at the philosophical aspects and questions that modern astrophysical research gives rise to. Other than cosmology, astrophysics particularly deals with understanding phenomena and processes operating at “intermediate” cosmic scales, which has rarely aroused philosophical interest so far. Being confronted with the attribution of antirealism by Ian Hacking because of its observational nature, astrophysics is equipped with a characteristic methodology that can cope with the missing possibility of direct interaction with most objects of research. In its attempt to understand the causal history of singular phenomena, it resembles the historical sciences, while the search for general causal relations with respect to classes of processes or objects can rely on the “cosmic laboratory”: the multitude of different phenomena and environments naturally provided by the universe. Furthermore, the epistemology of astrophysics is strongly based on the use of models and simulations and a complex treatment of large amounts of data.

scholarly journals Planetariums, theatres of the Universe

2009 ◽  
Vol 5 (S260) ◽  
pp. 465-474
Author(s):  
Agnès Acker
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Know How ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
Teaching Goal ◽  
Astronomy And Astrophysics ◽  
The Universe

AbstractThe history of this magic instrument is complex, and the teaching goal was never forgotten. Technological developments of the planetarium enable it now to treat the major topics of astronomy and astrophysics. But by simplifying too much or badly, one is likely to bring confusion in the spirits. The development of the planetarium is a continual challenge, as long as the scientific culture is not integrated perfectly in the cultural landscape. In several countries, planetariums link their knowledge and their know-how, for better resisting to economic difficulties, and better speaking about astronomy to their public. In particular the great project ALMA will be celebrated in a show for the International Year of Astronomy. Today's planetarium works as a theater for all sciences, and can issue a passport to the various scales of the universe

Roshdi Rashed

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 279-295
Author(s):  
Mohammed Aref
Keyword(s):  
Review Essay ◽  
Great Book ◽  
Mathematical Language ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Major Work ◽  
Galileo Galilei ◽  
Elementary Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe

This review essay introduces the work of the Egyptian scientific historian and philosopher Roshdi Rashed, a pioneer in the field of the history of Arab sciences. The article is based on the five volumes he originally wrote in French and later translated into Arabic, which were published by the Centre for Arab Unity Studies and which are now widely acclaimed as a unique effort to unveil the achievements of Arab scientists. The essay reviews this major work, which seems, like Plato’s Republic to have “No Entry for Those Who Have No Knowledge of Mathematics” written on its gate. If you force your way in, even with elementary knowledge of computation, a philosophy will unfold before your eyes, described by the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei as “written in that great book which ever lies before our eyes—I mean the universe—but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols, in which it is written. This book is written in the mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.” The essay is a journey through this labyrinth where the history of world mathematics got lost and was chronicled by Rashed in five volumes translated from the French into Arabic. It took him fifteen years to complete.

Turning Aliens into Socialists

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-93
Author(s):  
Jessica Moberg
Keyword(s):  
Outer Space ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
History Of ◽  
Swedish History ◽  
Second World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Highly Evolved

Immediately after the Second World War Sweden was struck by a wave of sightings of strange flying objects. In some cases these mass sightings resulted in panic, particularly after authorities failed to identify them. Decades later, these phenomena were interpreted by two members of the Swedish UFO movement, Erland Sandqvist and Gösta Rehn, as alien spaceships, or UFOs. Rehn argued that ‘[t]here is nothing so dramatic in the Swedish history of UFOs as this invasion of alien fly-things’ (Rehn 1969: 50). In this article the interpretation of such sightings proposed by these authors, namely that we are visited by extraterrestrials from outer space, is approached from the perspective of myth theory. According to this mythical theme, not only are we are not alone in the universe, but also the history of humankind has been shaped by encounters with more highly-evolved alien beings. In their modern day form, these kinds of ideas about aliens and UFOs originated in the United States. The reasoning of Sandqvist and Rehn exemplifies the localization process that took place as members of the Swedish UFO movement began to produce their own narratives about aliens and UFOs. The question I will address is: in what ways do these stories change in new contexts? Texts produced by the Swedish UFO movement are analyzed as a case study of this process.

Galileo Unbound

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David D. Nolte
Keyword(s):  
Free Fall ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Quantum Field ◽  
Many Worlds ◽  
Quantum Particles ◽  
Light Rays ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Insight Into

Galileo Unbound: A Path Across Life, The Universe and Everything traces the journey that brought us from Galileo’s law of free fall to today’s geneticists measuring evolutionary drift, entangled quantum particles moving among many worlds, and our lives as trajectories traversing a health space with thousands of dimensions. Remarkably, common themes persist that predict the evolution of species as readily as the orbits of planets or the collapse of stars into black holes. This book tells the history of spaces of expanding dimension and increasing abstraction and how they continue today to give new insight into the physics of complex systems. Galileo published the first modern law of motion, the Law of Fall, that was ideal and simple, laying the foundation upon which Newton built the first theory of dynamics. Early in the twentieth century, geometry became the cause of motion rather than the result when Einstein envisioned the fabric of space-time warped by mass and energy, forcing light rays to bend past the Sun. Possibly more radical was Feynman’s dilemma of quantum particles taking all paths at once—setting the stage for the modern fields of quantum field theory and quantum computing. Yet as concepts of motion have evolved, one thing has remained constant, the need to track ever more complex changes and to capture their essence, to find patterns in the chaos as we try to predict and control our world.

scholarly journals Recent Near-Infrared Light-Activated Nanomedicine toward Precision Cancer Therapy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaowei Luan ◽  
Yongchun Pan ◽  
Yanfeng Gao ◽  
Yujun Song
Keyword(s):  
Cancer Therapy ◽  
Near Infrared ◽  
Infrared Light ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Near Infrared Light ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe

Light has witnessed the history of mankind and even the universe. It is of great significances to the life of human society, contributing to energy, agriculture, communication, and much more....

scholarly journals Displaced new physics at colliders and the early universe before its first second

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Calibbi ◽  
Francesco D’Eramo ◽  
Sam Junius ◽  
Laura Lopez-Honorez ◽  
Alberto Mariotti
Keyword(s):  
Dark Matter ◽  
Early Universe ◽  
Upper Bound ◽  
New Physics ◽  
Early History ◽  
Relic Density ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indirect Information ◽  
The Universe

Abstract Displaced vertices at colliders, arising from the production and decay of long-lived particles, probe dark matter candidates produced via freeze-in. If one assumes a standard cosmological history, these decays happen inside the detector only if the dark matter is very light because of the relic density constraint. Here, we argue how displaced events could very well point to freeze-in within a non-standard early universe history. Focusing on the cosmology of inflationary reheating, we explore the interplay between the reheating temperature and collider signatures for minimal freeze-in scenarios. Observing displaced events at the LHC would allow to set an upper bound on the reheating temperature and, in general, to gather indirect information on the early history of the universe.

Athena: Providing Insight into the History of the Universe . . .

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Lyford ◽  
Eric Buckenmeyer ◽  
Josh Eggleston ◽  
Katie Rybacki ◽  
Umair Surani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
History Of ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Insight Into

Discovery of the Universe: An Outline of the History of Astronomy from the Origins to 1956

Physics Today ◽  
1957 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 38-40
Author(s):  
Gérard de Vaucouleurs ◽  
C. C. Kiess
Keyword(s):  
History Of Astronomy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe

scholarly journals Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy at Degree Angular Scales and the Thermal History of the Universe

1997 ◽  
Vol 480 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo de Bernardis ◽  
Amedeo Balbi ◽  
Giancarlo De Gasperis ◽  
Alessandro Melchiorri ◽  
Nicola Vittorio
Keyword(s):  
Cosmic Microwave Background ◽  
Thermal History ◽  
Microwave Background ◽  
Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe

scholarly journals A dark clue to seesaw and leptogenesis in a pseudo-Dirac singlet doublet scenario with (non)standard cosmology

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Partha Konar ◽  
Ananya Mukherjee ◽  
Abhijit Kumar Saha ◽  
Sudipta Show
Keyword(s):  
Dark Matter ◽  
Thermal History ◽  
Direct Detection ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Mass Term ◽  
Baryon Asymmetry ◽  
Dark Sector ◽  
Lepton Asymmetry ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe

Abstract We propose an appealing alternative scenario of leptogenesis assisted by dark sector which leads to the baryon asymmetry of the Universe satisfying all theoretical and experimental constraints. The dark sector carries a non minimal set up of singlet doublet fermionic dark matter extended with copies of a real singlet scalar field. A small Majorana mass term for the singlet dark fermion, in addition to the typical Dirac term, provides the more favourable dark matter of pseudo-Dirac type, capable of escaping the direct search. Such a construction also offers a formidable scope to radiative generation of active neutrino masses. In the presence of a (non)standard thermal history of the Universe, we perform the detailed dark matter phenomenology adopting the suitable benchmark scenarios, consistent with direct detection and neutrino oscillations data. Besides, we have demonstrated that the singlet scalars can go through CP-violating out of equilibrium decay, producing an ample amount of lepton asymmetry. Such an asymmetry then gets converted into the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe through the non-perturbative sphaleron processes owing to the presence of the alternative cosmological background considered here. Unconventional thermal history of the Universe can thus aspire to lend a critical role both in the context of dark matter as well as in realizing baryogenesis.

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