Relativity Space-Time and Cosmology

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Author: Jose Wudka

Published in: E-libraryme

ISBN: 0-0000-0000-0

File Type: pdf

File Size:  12 MB

Language: English

Description

Relativity Space-Time and Cosmology book notes cover the development of the current scientific concepts of space and time through history, emphasizing the newest developments and ideas. The presentation will be non-mathematical: the concepts will be introduced and explained, but no real calculations will be performed. The various concepts will be introduced in a historical order (whenever possible), this provides a measure of understanding as to how the ideas on which the modern theory of space and time is based were developed. In a real sense this has been an adventure for humanity, very similar to what a child undergoes from the moment he or she first looks at the world to the point he or she understands some of its rules. Part of this adventure will be told here. Every single culture has had a theory of the formation of the universe and the laws that rule it. Such a system is called a cosmology (from the Greek kosmos: world, and logia from legein: to speak).

The first coherent non-religious cosmology was developed during ancient Greece, and much attention will be paid to it after a brief overview of Egyptian and Babyonian comologies 1 The system of the world devised by the Greeks described correctly all phenomena known at the time, and was able to predict most astronomical phenomena with great accuracy. Its most refined version, the Ptolemaic system, survived for more than one thousand years.