Cosmology

Every time we get slapped down, we can say, Thank you Mother Nature, because it means we're about to learn something important.

— Cosmology

In the beginning, the establishment of first ties between general relativity and astronomy was a tedious exercise involving only a small number of bridge builders, most notably Freundlich, , Willem de Sitter, Arthur Eddington, , and Edwin Hubble.

— Cosmology

While in the first quarter of this century physicists and cosmologists were forced to revise the basic notions that govern the natural sciences, in the last quarter of this century biologists will force a revision of the basic notions that govern science itself. After that “first revolution” it was clear that the classical concept of an “ultimate science”, that is an objective description of the world in which there are no subjects (a “subjectless universe”), contains contradictions.

— Cosmology

Why are the heavens not filled with light? Why is the universe plunged into darkness?

— Cosmology

One may wonder, What came before? If space-time did not exist then, how could everything appear from nothing?... Explaining this initial singularity—where and when it all began—still remains the most intractable problem of modern cosmology.

— Cosmology

Dirac spent the autumn term of 1931 at Princeton University, where was a professor. During his stay they got to know each other well. Most likely they discussed cosmology, a science which at the time was experiencing dramatic changes.

— Cosmology

We should, of course, expect that any universe which expands without limit will approach the empty de Sitter case, and that its ultimate fate is a state in which each physical unit—perhaps each nebula or intimate group of nebulae—is the only thing which exists within its own observable universe.

— Cosmology

Hindu cosmology... gives a time-scale for the earth and the universe which is consonant with that of modern scientific cosmology.

— Cosmology

Our mistake is not that we take our theories too seriously, but that we do not take them seriously enough. It is always hard to realize that these numbers and equations we play with at our desks have something to do with the real world. ...The most important thing accomplished by the three-degree radiation background in 1965 was to force us to take seriously the idea that there was an early universe.

— Cosmology

The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things which lifts human life a little above the level of farce and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.

— Cosmology

Cosmology is peculiar among the sciences for it is both the oldest and the youngest. From the dawn of civilization man has speculated about the nature of the starry heavens and the origin of the world, but only in the present century has physical cosmology split away from general philosophy to become an independent discipline.

— Cosmology

Cosmology is a science which has only a few observable facts to work with.

— Cosmology