They both postulated that if the stars in the universe were distributed in a hierarchical fractal cosmology ( e. g., similar to Cantor dust )— the average density of any region diminishes as the region considered increases — it would not be necessary to rely on the Big Bang theory to explain Olbers ' paradox.

" In addition, the Hopis have always been willing to assimilate foreign ideas into their cosmology if they are proven effective for such practical necessities as bringing rain.

Thelemites believe that if he is met with proper preparation, then his function is to destroy the ego, which allows the adept to move beyond the Abyss of occult cosmology.

Generating a personalized cosmology involves several options-for example, consider how magic works if basic planes that feed magic ( such as the Ethereal or Astral planes ) are disposed of.

Feyerabend also argues that, if Galileo had adhered to the conditions of methodological monism, then he could not have advanced a heliocentric cosmology.

Inflationary cosmology models suggest that there may be more to the universe than can be seen from the Earth, if only for the simple reason that the universe isn't old enough for light from the most distant parts of the universe to have reached us yet.

Understanding the formation and evolution of the largest and earliest structures ( i. e., quasars, galaxies, clusters and superclusters ) is one of the largest efforts in cosmology.

The nature of dark energy is one of the most challenging problems in cosmology.

Inflation answers the classic conundrum of the Big Bang cosmology: why does the universe appear flat, homogeneous, and isotropic in accordance with the cosmological principle when one would expect, on the basis of the physics of the Big Bang, a highly curved, heterogeneous universe?

Paul J. Steinhardt, one of the founding fathers of inflationary cosmology, has recently become one of its sharpest critics.

The belief in a disk remained the dominant one in Indian cosmology until the early centuries AD, such as in the Puranas:

Midgard ( an anglicised form of Old Norse ; Old English, Old High German, Gothic Midjun-gards ; literally " middle enclosure ") is the name for the world ( in the sense of oikoumene ) inhabited by and known to humans in early Germanic cosmology, and specifically one of the Nine Worlds and in Norse mythology.

A black-hole cosmology is a cosmological model in which the observable Universe is the interior of a black hole existing as one of possibly many inside a larger universe.

Paleontology is one of the historical sciences, along with archaeology, geology, biology, astronomy, cosmology, philology and history itself.

The study was eidetic, approaching the philosophical objectives sought by considering it from each aspect of the quadrivium within the general structure demonstrated by Proclus, namely arithmetic and music on the one hand, and geometry and cosmology on the other.

The actual process of change from one life to the next is called punarbhava ( Sanskrit ) or punabbhava ( Pāli ), literally " becoming again ", or more briefly bhava, " becoming ", and some English-speaking Buddhists prefer the term " rebirth " or " re-becoming " to render this term as they take " reincarnation " to imply a fixed entity that is reborn .< ref >" Reincarnation in Buddhism: What the Buddha Didn't Teach " By Barbara O ' Brien, About. com < sup > Popular Jain cosmology and Buddhist cosmology as well as a number of schools of Hinduism posit rebirth in many worlds and in varied forms.

In Buddhist cosmology, the bodhisattva of the Sun is known as Ri Gong Ri Guang Pu Sa ( The Bright Solar Bodhisattva of the Solar Palace ) / Ri Gong Ri Guang Tian Zi ( The Bright Solar Prince of the Solar Palace ) / Ri Gong Ri Guang Zun Tian Pu Sa ( The Greatly Revered Bright Solar Prince of the Solar Palace / one of the 20 or 24 guardian devas ).

The idea of a unified spacetime is stated by Edgar Allan Poe in his essay on cosmology titled Eureka ( 1848 ) that " Space and duration are one.

* 12th century — Fakhr al-Din al-Razi discusses Islamic cosmology, rejects Aristotle's idea of an Earth-centered universe, and, in the context of his commentary on the Qur ' anic verse, " All praise belongs to God, Lord of the Worlds ," proposes that the universe has more than " a thousand thousand worlds beyond this world such that each one of those worlds be bigger and more massive than this world as well as having the like of what this world has.

Niðavellir has often been interpreted as one of the nine worlds of Norse cosmology.

In Norse cosmology, Vanaheimr is considered one of the Nine Worlds.

In cosmology, the vacuum energy is one possible explanation for the cosmological constant.

Their otherworldly homeland is Jötunheimr, one of the nine worlds of Norse cosmology, separated from Midgard, the world of humans, by high mountains or dense forests.

A gandharva ( Sanskrit ) or gandhabba ( Pāli ) is one of the lowest-ranking devas in Buddhist cosmology.

In Hinduism, Svarga ( or Swarga ) () also known as Swarga Loka is a one of seven loka or planes in Hindu cosmology, which sequentially are Bhu loka ( Prithvi Loka, Earth ), Bhuvar loka, Swarga loka, Mahar loka, Jana loka, Tapa loka, and the highest Satyaloka ( Brahmaloka ).

Among them were more than one culture who built earthwork mounds, monuments which generally expressed their cosmology, often with links to astronomical events.

If one divides a change in proper distance by the interval of cosmological time where the change was measured ( or takes the derivative of proper distance with respect to cosmological time ) and calls this a " velocity ", then the resulting " velocities " of galaxies or quasars can be above the speed of light, c. This apparent superluminal expansion is not in conflict with special or general relativity, and is a consequence of the particular definitions used in cosmology.

The first book assumes that gamemasters will set their campaigns after the Patternfall war ; that is, after the end of the fifth book in the series, The Courts of Chaos, but uses material from the following books to describe those parts of Zelazny's cosmology that were featured there in more detail.

These should not be confused with non-standard cosmology: a non-standard BBN scenario assumes that the Big Bang occurred, but inserts additional physics in order to see how this affects elemental abundances.

Like the steady state theory, plasma cosmology includes a Strong Cosmological Principle which assumes that the universe is isotropic in time as well as in space.

Standard cosmology assumes a smooth homogeneous universe, but the real universe is very lumpy

In physical cosmology, the Copernican principle, named after Nicolaus Copernicus, states that the Earth is not in a central, specially favored position.

Bondi and Thomas Gold used the Copernican principle to argue for the perfect cosmological principle which maintains that the universe is also homogeneous in time, and is the basis for the steady-state cosmology.

* 1584 — Giordano Bruno proposes a non-hierarchical cosmology, wherein the Copernican solar system is not the center of the universe, but rather, a relatively insignificant star system, amongst an infinite multitude of others

Contrary to the Ptolemaic cosmology of the original book by his father, the appendix featured a detailed discussion of the controversial and still poorly known Copernican heliocentric model of the Universe.

A clear illustration of the theory in practice is the Copernican revolution where Copernicus ’ idea of a solar system was largely ignored ( not in the rules ) when first introduced, then Galileo was deemed a heretic ( rules called into question ), and after a revolution in cosmology, the solar system is taken as an obvious and foundational part of scientific knowledge ( new rules ).

Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes ( Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds ) of 1686 was an important work from this period, speculating on pluralism and describing the new Copernican cosmology.

In astrophysics and cosmology, the anthropic principle is the philosophical consideration that observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it.

Modern mathematical cosmology is based on the assumption that the Cosmological principle is almost, but not exactly, true on the largest scales.

He also contributed to cosmology the hypothesis known as Mach's principle.

In modern physical cosmology, the cosmological principle is the working assumption that observers on Earth do not occupy an unusual or privileged location within the universe as a whole, judged as observers of the physical phenomena produced by uniform and universal laws of physics.

Many important advances in astronomy and cosmology, and the formulation of new cosmological theories, have occurred through the resolution of apparent violations of the cosmological principle.

Underlying the worldview of traditional cosmology is the idea that the universe is an emnanation of a unitary divine principle.

* Yang, in yin and yang, the word for one half of the two opposing forces in Chinese philosophy, described as " bright positive masculine principle " in Chinese dualistic cosmology

In Big Bang cosmology, the observable universe consists of the galaxies and other matter that humans can, in principle, observe from Earth in the present day — because light ( or other signals ) from those objects has had time to reach the Earth since the beginning of the cosmological expansion.

The anthropic principle in cosmology recognizes this view.

The most enduring feature of Anaximenes ' cosmos was its conception of the stars being fixed on a crystal sphere as in a rigid frame, which became a fundamental principle of cosmology down to Copernicus and Kepler.

Howard Percy Robertson ( January 27, 1903 – August 26, 1961 ) was an American mathematician and physicist known for contributions related to physical cosmology and the uncertainty principle.

However, it is a fundamental assumption of cosmology that the universe continues to exist beyond the scope of the observable universe, and that the distribution of matter is everywhere the same at such a large scale ( see cosmological principle ).

Although this anthropic principle was originally designed as a rebuttal to the Doomsday argument ( by Dennis Dieks in 1992 ) it has general applications in the philosophy of anthropic reasoning, and Ken Olum has suggested it is important to the analysis of quantum cosmology.