Questions tagged [cosmology]
The study of the large-scale structure, history, and future of the universe. Cosmology is about asking and answering questions about the "big picture" - the extent, origin, and fate of everything we know.
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Did the Big Bang happen at a point?
TV documentaries invariably show the Big Bang as an exploding ball of fire expanding outwards. Did the Big Bang really explode outwards from a point like this? If not, what did happen?
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Why does space expansion not expand matter?
I have looked at other questions on this site (e.g. "why does space expansion affect matter") but can't find the answer I am looking for.
So here is my question: One often hears talk of space ...
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Is the total energy of the universe zero?
In popular science books and articles, I keep running into the claim that the total energy of the Universe is zero, "because the positive energy of matter is cancelled out by the negative energy of ...
user1265
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Can space expand with unlimited speed?
According to this article on the European Space Agency web site just after the Big Bang and before inflation the currently observable universe was the size of a coin. One millionth of a second later ...
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Why is the observable universe so big?
The observable universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old. But yet it is 80 billion light years across. Isn't this a contradiction?
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Did spacetime start with the Big bang?
Did spacetime start with the Big Bang? I mean, was there any presence of this spacetime we are experiencing now before big bang? And could there be a presence/existence of any other space-time before ...
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Does the universe have a center? [duplicate]
If the big bang was the birth of everything, and the big bang was an event in the sense that it had a location and a time (time 0), wouldn't that mean that our universe has a center?
Where was the ...
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Is the CMB rest frame special? Where does it come from?
It seems that we are moving relative to the universe at the speed of ~ 600 km/s.
This is the speed of our galaxy relative to the cosmic microwave background.
Where does this rest frame come from? Is ...
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How does the Hubble parameter change with the age of the universe?
How does the Hubble parameter change with the age of the universe?
This question was posted recently, and I had almost finished writing an answer when the question was deleted. Since it's a shame to ...
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Is the universe finite or infinite?
I thought the universe was finite, but then I read this:
How can something finite become infinite?
And they seem to assume it is infinite. So which is it?
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How would we tell antimatter galaxies apart?
Given that antimatter galaxies are theoretically possible,
how would they be distinguishable from regular matter galaxies?
That is, antimatter is equal in atomic weight and all properties, except for ...
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Is the law of conservation of energy still valid?
Is the law of conservation of energy still valid or have there been experiments showing that energy could be created or lost?
user11151
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Why isn't dark matter just ordinary matter?
There's more gravitational force in our galaxy (and others) than can be explained by counting stars made of ordinary matter. So why not lots of dark planetary systems (i.e., without stars) made of ...
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What does general relativity say about the relative velocities of objects that are far away from one another?
What does general relativity say about the relative velocities of objects that are far away from one another? In particular:--
Can distant galaxies be moving away from us at speeds faster than $c$? ...
user4552
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How do we know Dark Matter isn't simply Neutrinos?
What evidence is there that dark matter isn't one of the known types of neutrinos?
If it were, how would this be measurable?
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Are we inside a black hole?
I was surprised to only recently notice that
An object of any density can be large enough to fall within its own
Schwarzschild radius.
Of course! It turns out that supermassive black holes at ...
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Are modified theories of gravity credible?
I'm a statistician with a little training in physics and would just like to know the general consensus on a few things.
I'm reading a book by John Moffat which basically tries to state how GR makes ...
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Has the speed of light changed over time?
Could someone judge my (stoner) hypothesis that the speed of light has changed over time -- i.e. as the universe has expanded in volume light has slowed down, perhaps going so far as back to the big ...
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What if the universe is rotating as a whole?
Suppose in the milliseconds after the big bang the cosmic egg had aquired some large angular momentum. As it expanded, keeping the momentum constant (not external forces) the rate of rotation would ...
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The age of the universe
Many times I have read statements like, "the age of the universe is 14 billion years" . For example this wikipedia page Big Bang.
Now, my question is, which observers' are these time intervals? ...
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How can something finite become infinite?
How can the universe become infinite in spatial extent if it started as a singularity, wouldn't it take infinite time to expand into an infinite universe?
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Why did the universe not collapse to a black hole shortly after the big bang?
Wasn't the density of the universe at the moment after the Big Bang so great as to create a black hole? If the answer is that the universe/space-time can expand anyway what does it imply about what ...
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What does the cosmic neutrino background look like today, given that neutrinos possess mass?
This question is inspired by (or a follow-up to) the threads Where are all the slow neutrinos? and Is it possible that all “spontaneous nuclear decay” is actually “slow neutrino” induced?
The cosmic ...
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Photons in expanding space: how is energy conserved? [duplicate]
If a photon (wave package) redshifts (stretches) travelling in our expanding universe, is its energy reduced?
If so, where does that energy go?
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How can a quasar be 29 billion light-years away from Earth if Big Bang happened only 13.8 billion years ago? [duplicate]
I was reading through the Wikipedia article on Quasars and came across the fact that the most distant Quasar is 29 Billion Light years. This is what the article exactly says
The highest redshift ...
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Do the laws of physics evolve?
Hubble's constant $a(t)$ appears to be changing over time. The fine stucture constant $\alpha$, like many others in QFT, is a running constant that varies, proportional to energy being used to measure ...
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Sympletic structure of General Relativity
Inspired by physics.SE: Does the dimensionality of phase space go up as the universe expands?
It made me wonder about symplectic structures in GR, specifically, is there something like a Louiville ...
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Shape of the universe?
What is the exact shape of the universe? I know of the balloon analogy, and the bread with raisins in it. These clarify some points, like how the universe can have no centre, and how it can expand ...
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Did time exist before the Big Bang and the creation of the universe? [duplicate]
Does time stretch all the way back for infinity or was there a point when time appears to start in the universe?
I remember reading long ago somewhere that according to one theory time began shortly ...
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What has been proved about the big bang, and what has not?
Ok so the universe is in constant expansion, that has been proven, right? And that means that it was smaller in the past.. But what's the smallest size we can be sure the universe has ever had?
I ...
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Cosmology - an expansion of all length scales
From the link Is non-mainstream physics appropriate for this site?
"a question that proposes a new concept or paradigm, but asks for evaluation of that concept within the framework of current (...
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Why isn't an infinite, flat, nonexpanding universe filled with a uniform matter distribution a solution to Einstein's equation?
In Newtonian gravity, an infinite volume filled with a uniform distribution of mass would be in perfect equilibrium. At every point, the gravitational forces contributed by masses in one direction ...
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How can it be that the beginning universe had a high temperature and a low entropy at the same time?
The Big Bang theory assumes that our universe started from a very/infinitely dense and extremely/infinitely hot state. But on the other side, it is often claimed that our universe must have been ...
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Why was the universe in an extraordinarily low-entropy state right after the big bang?
Let me start by saying that I have no scientific background whatsoever. I am very interested in science though and I'm currently enjoying Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos. I'm at chapter 7 and ...
Kristof Claes
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Is the total energy of the universe constant?
If total energy is conserved just transformed and never newly created, is there a sum of all energies that is constant? Why is it probably not that easy?
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What does it mean that the universe is "infinite"?
This question is about cosmology and general relativity.
I understand the difference between the universe and the observable universe. What I am not really clear about is what is meant when I read ...
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At what speed does our universe expand?
Conceivably it expands with the speed of light. I do not know, but curious, if there is an answer. At what velocity, does our universe expand?
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Given that matter cannot escape a black hole, how did the big bang produce the universe we see today?
Extrapolation of the expansion of the Universe backwards in time using general relativity yields an infinite density and temperature at a finite time in the past.
If the matter contained within our ...
Daniel X Moore
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Is the Big Bang defined as before or after Inflation?
Is the Big Bang defined as before or after Inflation? Seems like a simple enough question to answer right? And if just yesterday I were to encounter this, I'd have given a definite answer. But I've ...
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How did the universe shift from "dark matter dominated" to "dark energy dominated"?
In order to get dark energy to dominate, wouldn't you first need another form of energy to push the expansion until dark energy could dominate? Otherwise I don't understand how the universe could ...
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Redshifted Photon Energy
A photon emitted from a receding source (Doppler redshift) has less energy when detected at an observer's location. Please explain the energy loss from the perspective of energy conservation.
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Why do neutrino oscillations imply nonzero neutrino masses?
Neutrinos can pass from one family to another (that is, change in flavor) in a process known as neutrino oscillation. The oscillation between the different families occurs randomly, and the likelihood ...
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Assuming that the Cosmological Principle is correct, does this imply that the universe possess an empirically privileged reference frame?
OK...before everyone blasts this with references to the relativistic invariance of the physical laws, time dilation, etc let me add some context. Also, I am an amateur with an interest in physics, so ...
user31580
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If everything in the universe doubled in size overnight, would it be noticeable?
By my understanding, if everything doubled in size, such as the Sun and the Earth, and because the space in between them (which is nothing) can't expand, would the gravities greatly change and the ...
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What is the theoretical limit for farthest we can see back in time and distance?
13.2 billion years ago the universe was rather small, having started only half a billion years ago. Today, with the help of Hubble Space Telescope, we are able to capture the light of galaxies emitted ...
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What if the size of the Universe doubled?
My question has a silly formulation, but I want to know if there is some sensible physical question buried in it:
Suppose an exact copy of our Universe is made, but where spatial distances and sizes ...
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spacetime expansion and universe expansion?
First of all, does the expansion of spacetime solely cause the expansion of universe?
Secondly, if spacetime is the sole cause, do objects(matter with mass) themselves expand?
Thirdly, by spacetime ...
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Does the number density of photons $n_\gamma\approx 10^8 \:\mathrm m^{-3}$ refer to CMB photons only?
When we talk about the present-day number density of photons ($n_\gamma\approx 10^8 \:\mathrm m^{-3}$) in the universe do we mean the number density of CMB photons? I mean there are other sources of ...
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How does the formation of a solar system not break the second law of thermodynamics?
Please forgive: I am a layman when it comes to physics and cosmology, and have tried finding an answer to this that I can understand, with no luck.
As I understand it, the solar system evolved from a ...
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Is it possible that galaxies' redshift is caused by something else than the expansion of space?
I was thinking that maybe photons loss energy naturally when they travel great distances.
Or maybe the mass of all matter is increasing over time and therefore photons emitted in the past are ...
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